


Two Blue Moons

by Alyss_Baskerville



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Complicated Relationships, Disappointment, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Female Friendship, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Loyalty, Major Original Character(s), Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Obsessive Behavior, Original Character-centric, POV Original Character, POV Third Person Limited, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship, Psychological Trauma, Royalty, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Slow To Update, Surprise Kissing, Violence, Worship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24816355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyss_Baskerville/pseuds/Alyss_Baskerville
Summary: By all rights, the two of them never should have met, let alone gotten along. She was looking for revenge, and he was looking to grant a wish. Caring about each other, it would only hinder both of them. But feelings were never so simple.
Relationships: Glen Baskerville | Oswald Baskerville & Jack Vessalius, Glen Baskerville | Oswald Baskerville & Lacie Baskerville, Glen Baskerville | Oswald Baskerville & Original Female Character(s), Glen Baskerville | Oswald Baskerville/Jack Vessalius (Slight), Glen Baskerville | Oswald Baskerville/Original Female Character(s), Jack Vessalius & Original Female Character(s), Lacie Baskerville & Original Female Character(s), Lacie Baskerville/Jack Vessalius, Lottie (Pandora Hearts) & Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Original Female Character(s)/Original Male Character(s), Sharon Rainsworth & Original Female Character(s), Xerxes Break & Reim Lunettes, Xerxes Break & Sharon Rainsworth, Xerxes Break/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Character Introductions

This chapter is just an introduction for the major original characters that will feature in this story. There might be others, but they either can't be given away because of spoilers or will likely have marginal bearing on the plot and/or only be mentioned.

_**Psyche** _

_**** _

_**** _

_**** _

_**** _

_**** _

**Age:** 20 years (physically)

 **Height:** 157 cm

 **Eyes:** Pale green

 **Hair:** Pale gold

 **Species:** Baskerville

 **Affiliation:** Baskerville Dukedom

 **Chain:** Helio

*Her name is pronounced _Sigh-kay_

* * *

**_Helio_**

****

**__ **

**__ **

****

**__ **

**__ **

**Age:** 20 years (physically)

 **Height:** 182 cm

 **Eyes:** Purple

 **Hair:** Silver

 **Species:** Chain

 **Affiliation:** Baskerville Dukedom

 **Contractor:** Psyche

*His name is pronounced _Hel-leo_

* * *

**_Nesta_ **

**Age:** 20 years (physically)

 **Height:** 168 cm

 **Eyes:** Caramel

 **Hair:** Golden brown

 **Species:** Baskerville

 **Affiliation:** Baskerville Dukedom

 **Chain:** Isil

* * *

**_ Isil _ **

**Contractor:** Nesta

* * *

**_Maylis_ **

**Age:** 15 years (physically)

 **Height:** 156 cm

 **Eyes:** Fuchsia

 **Hair:** Light pink

 **Species:** Baskerville

 **Affiliation:** Baskerville Dukedom

 **Chain:** Elain

* * *

**_Elain_ **

**__ **

**Contractor:** Maylis

* * *

**_ Orpheus_**

**_ _ **

**_ _ **

**Age:** 18 years (physically)

 **Height:** 172 cm

 **Eyes:** Black

 **Hair:** Black

 **Species:** Baskerville

 **Affiliation:** Baskerville Dukedom

 **Chain:** Azrael

* * *

** _Azrael_**

** __ **

**Contractor:** Orpheus


	2. Recollection 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking back over her shoulder, she glanced at Glen-sama, whose back was to her. He cut an imposing figure, tall and powerful and raven-black from head to toe, but she, for some reason, had never wanted to hug someone more than she did at that moment.

_“Kill every single person in this town – women and children included!”_

Psyche stared at Glen-sama, uncomprehending. Despite being able to hear, see, smell, feel, and taste with perfect clarity, she felt like she’d been thrust into a current of icy water, muddling her thoughts and slowing her mind. Sluggish. Stiff. He wanted… _what?_

Next to her master, as if sensing her distress, the Black-Winged Chains stirred slightly.

“Glen-sama,” she whispered; well, she didn’t _mean_ to whisper, but those words had knocked the air out of her lungs completely, making her head spin and pound in protest. She knew she’d heard him right, she _did_ , but she didn’t believe it. She _wouldn’t_ believe it. _I misheard. I must have. There’s no way. No way he would––_

“Glen-sama, you can’t mean––”

 _“Do it!”_ Glen-sama’s bark, sharp and pitiless and brooking no argument, sliced through Fang’s incredulous denial like a hot knife through butter. Next to Psyche, Lottie had stiffened to the point of looking like a statue. Psyche glimpsed bone-deep incomprehension in her dark pink eyes.

 _Why?_ She wondered, even as she turned her back on Glen-sama to carry out his commands – to carry out the mass slaughter of all the people in the town. Numbly, her feet carried her out of the room, following the other Baskervilles who were doing the same, but at the last moment before she stepped out of the doorframe, she hesitated. Looking back over her shoulder, she glanced at Glen-sama, whose back was to her. He cut an imposing figure, tall and powerful and raven-black from head to toe, but she, for some reason, had never wanted to hug someone more than she did at that moment.

“Oswald,” she called lowly. Oswald stiffened. Slowly, as if reluctant to accept that that name belonged to him, he turned towards her, and their gazes met. His purple eyes were bright and strained, not with tears but with furious, burning energy, an emotion that Psyche couldn’t name.

“Go.”

That was it. Glen was giving her a command, and a Baskerville couldn’t refuse. Lowering her head, not out of submission but of sickened resignation, Psyche looked at him one last time. The gaze that met her eyes was hard and cold.

She left the room, pulling her hood up over her head.

The act of killing, itself, was surprisingly not as horrible as she thought it would be. Somehow, for some reason, she had expected her limbs to be shaking, for her to hesitate every step of the way, for her heart to clench in horror and disgust as she stabbed, sliced, slashed, and maimed with her [dagger](https://img3.goodfon.com/wallpaper/nbig/8/46/dungeon-ni-deai-o-motomeru-no-393.jpg). None of those things happened. Her hands were steady, her mind was clear and focused as she made her way through the manor, leaving bloodied bodies behind her as she went. Many of them tried to run, but she was merciless as she chased them down and killed them – quick, almost instantaneous, and so, so easy. Many of them tried to fight, and the complete desperation and fervor with which they resisted her did nothing to even make her think about stopping. Maybe it was because this was what she’d been raised to do. From her earliest memory she could remember practicing for this sole purpose.

Eventually, it even became hard to find people to kill. Psyche found herself trekking through the halls, the metallic tang of blood thick on her tongue, trying to locate anyone who’d survived. Wherever she went, she found bodies, strewn across the floor, blood splattering the walls and the carpets. The stench of death was everywhere, and Psyche realized that she wanted to open a window to let the air out. Ignoring the impulse, she continued walking, keeping her footsteps soundless to avoid alerting anyone.

She heard soft crying and, almost on instinct, followed the noise to its source. It was a child, she saw, a boy, clutching a bloodstained curtain and sobbing, probably much too consumed by panic and fear and confusion to bother trying to hide. He was still chubby with baby-fat, around seven years old at most, with curly brown hair. As Psyche approached, he looked up at her with huge, tear-filled hazel eyes. His face was red from crying and streaked with snot. Upon seeing her, he began to cry harder until he half-fell and half-sat down hard on the ground, his legs no longer supporting his weight.

He was adorable. Psyche crouched next to him, slowly like she would a wounded animal. She wasn’t sure why she bothered doing that. He made no move to run, and even if he had, there would be no escape for him. It wasn’t like there was a point in trying to keep him calm, she thought, as she gathered him in her arms – he still didn’t try to fight her – wrapped her cloak around his face, and pressed her hands firmly against it. At first, the child kicked and finally struggled, clawing at her hands uselessly, but it only took a few short minutes for his movement to weaken and slow, and even less time from there for them to stop completely. He was dead.

Psyche unwrapped his head. Two hazel eyes were still filled with tears, but they were dull and flat now, no hint of fear or panic or confusion. No hint of anything at all. She closed them gently and placed the limp body next to the curtain before setting off again.

The smell of blood was clogging her nostrils to the point that she’d become used to it, which was why the visceral reaction of her body – tensing, wary – confused her for a second before she recognized the new smell processing in her brain. Psyche’s eyes widened. There was no mistaking that thick, cloggy acridity.

_Smoke._

And while she couldn’t see or hear any fire at the moment, she knew how rapidly, how wildly, flames could spread. If what she was smelling was right, the mansion would be consumed soon. The thought breaking her curiously cold composure, Psyche broke into a run, throwing stealth to the wind. She had to get out of the mansion, but first – she had to find her friends. They were all here somewhere, too. Or had they gotten out?

“Lottie!” she called as she sprinted. “Nesta! Lily! Fang! Maylis! Doug! Orpheus? Is anyone else in here? Hello?”

Her calls fell on deaf ears, and honestly, Psyche couldn’t say she was particularly surprised. Shouting was draining her energy, so she stopped, instead putting more effort into running. As she went, her eyes scanned the corridors frantically, hoping for any sign of anyone. It was nearly impossible to distinguish anything from the bodies, but she came across a dead man, his face practically pulverized by something large, blunt, heavy and swung with incredible strength. Psyche paused. This was unmistakably Doug’s work. No other Baskerville was as overpoweringly strong as he was, and no other Baskerville could wield a weapon like the kind necessary to completely smash through tissue and bone like this.

Nearby, about ten feet away, lay another body in a similar state of wreck, bone fragments and blood splattered everywhere. Doug’s work again. Psyche followed the trail hurriedly, occasionally calling out her comrade’s name. He had to be at the end of it, right? (In all technicality, he _didn’t,_ but this was the only lead she possibly had, and she wasn’t thinking straight.)

She had reached a fourth such body when a giant boom, resounding, rattling, tore through the air, knocking Psyche off her feet. She stumbled against the wall hard but didn’t fall, wincing as her shoulder banged against the flat surface. _What in the world…_ It sounded like an explosion, but it couldn’t have been just that. Explaining just _what_ that ripple felt like was difficult, but she knew instantly that it was charged with energy from the Abyss, potent, concentrated, overwhelmingly powerful. _Why would anything like that be happening right now?_

And Glen-sama’s order… so completely outlandish, so completely horrible, so completely _unlike him…_ It didn’t add up. This couldn’t be just a coincidence. _Oswald wouldn’t._ She knew it – there was nothing logical telling her that it was true, but it _was_ true. There had to be something going on here. _But what? Why would Glen-sama suddenly order something like this?_

Psyche shook her head. She couldn’t think, and she didn’t have time to waste thinking, not when the manor was steadily being devoured by flames. She hadn’t managed to find anyone, but at this rate… if she didn’t hurry, the fire would take care of all exits, and she couldn’t let that happen. She had to get out – for Oswald and Jack’s sakes, at least. And Lacie – Lacie would fume at her if she went down like this. She couldn’t. 

She took off again, working her way towards the outermost hallways of the manor and trying to ignore the unbelievably numerous corpses littering her path. She wouldn’t look at them, think about them, now. She wouldn’t do it.

Eventually, she found what she was looking for – a window – and, swinging her leg, kicked the glass, sending shards flying through the air. The sun was setting, and it took Psyche a moment to realize that the too-bright red glow wasn’t because of the sunset – it was because of the flames consuming the manor. Her heart lurched nauseatingly, the possibility that her fellow Baskervilles could be trapped and burning to death right now making her fists clench involuntarily.

She shook her head mentally. Not now. Just like the corpses – not now. Later, she could think about it later.

Bunching her cloak around her, Psyche leaped out of the window and fell for roughly four seconds, hitting the ground crouched on her feet. Glancing behind her, she saw from a frontal perspective just how far the fire had spread. Her chest felt tight again, but she ignored it. _Later._ Right now, she had to get back to the Baskerville estate. That was where the rest of the Baskervilles would want to be going, too. Regroup. Reorganize. Figure out what exactly was going on, why Glen-sama had done something so horrendously uncharacteristic, and what the blast of energy from the Abyss had been. And hopefully, hopefully, Lottie, Doug, Maylis, Fang, Lily, Orpheus – and Oswald – they were safe too.

It didn’t take Psyche long to run to the Baskerville estate, the inhuman speed that she’d been born with reducing the journey back to only a few minutes. Nevertheless, it wasn’t easy to keep a steady pace, because as Psyche sprinted through Sablier, she knew that all hell had broken loose. Chains were everywhere, and it was all she could do not to stop in her tracks and eradicate them. _How_ were there so many Chains outside of the Abyss? And was it because of them that she was feeling this overwhelming sensation of the Abyss’ energy surrounding her on all sides, saturating the entire city? She couldn’t recall ever running across Chains with such powerful energy, and yet there was nothing out of the ordinary about them that she could see. Furthermore, the bright flashes of white-golden light in the sky reminded her of the light of the Abyss. _And_ that blast earlier, rife with Abysmal energy – something was definitely going on with the Abyss. There was no other explanation. It had to be why Oswald had acted the way he did.

 _He summoned Raven, Owl, Dodo, Gryphon, and Jabberwock,_ Psyche thought, pushing herself harder. _But why? There was no one to pass judgment on, nothing that threatened the harmony of the Abyss, and he wasn’t fighting. Which means he needed to use them to stop the severing of the chains holding the world…_

The countless Chains, far too many to be normal. The saturation of the Abyss’ energy in the city. With a sinking feeling of dread, Psyche arrived at the conclusion that she desperately hoped was wrong. _The chains supporting the world are being broken. It’s all falling into the Abyss._ That was why Oswald wanted them to kill all the inhabitants of Sablier, she realized, nearly stumbling. Because of they were sucked into the Abyss before they died, they would mutate into Chains, their souls unable to undergo the One-Hundred-Year Cycle of Rebirth. _Oswald wanted to spare them that fate. And so he had us––_ She couldn’t finish the thought, unless she wanted her legs to begin trembling. The point, the important point, was that the chains supporting the world were being severed. That was what the flashes were.

But _why_ just the inhabitants of Sablier, when it was the whole world that was falling into the Abyss? Because it was where they were now, and Oswald was just trying to get them to do as much as was possible?

And _how_ could this even be happening? What could possibly have the power to sever those chains? The combined power of Raven, Owl, Dodo, Gryphon, and Jabberwock was capable, but they obeyed only Glen-sama, and Glen-sama would never do that. Oswald would never do that. Besides that… she couldn’t think of anyone, or anything, else. Unless _they_ were making a move on the world, but Psyche couldn’t make herself believe there was a chance of them. Their non-interference policy was too ridiculously strict for that to be a possibility.

Then _what?_

Her burning curiosity spurring her on, it didn’t take long for Psyche to find herself in front of one of the side gates of the Baskerville estate. It was locked, but she lay her hand on it and the latch clicked. She pushed the door open and slipped inside.

Something was definitely wrong. The energy of the Abyss was even thicker here, thrumming and rippling through the entire space of the estate. And while that usually wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary, given that the place was, well, the _Baskerville_ estate, the difference of the energy levels was too exponential for it to be just that. The dread spreading over Psyche’s body grew stronger, and she was almost afraid to keep going.

But she did just that, hurriedly putting one foot in front of the other as she made her way down the path leading to the manor. It rose into the sky, inviting and familiar, and for a moment, Psyche just wanted to stand still and look at it. Home. It was home.

But something was, beyond a doubt, not right here, and if there was something not right with her home, then she had to take care of it. She continued on, following the pull of the Abyss’ energy. The further she got, the stronger the pull became, and Psyche was sure that she was headed for the source.

What would she find, she wondered, with trepidation bubbling in her chest, making her feel like she was about to lose her grip on reality. A tear in the fabric of existence? Some mutant Chain that was beyond anything the Baskervilles had faced before? Glen-sama, somehow responsible for all this disaster? Psyche doubted most of the possibilities that came to mind, but that was all she had to reassure herself against them – her own doubt. Who was to say, after all, that they couldn’t be real? And furthermore, among these ridiculous possibilities, _one_ of them had to be right. The thought was deeply unsettling.

 _I’m headed for Alice’s tower,_ Psyche realized with a start. It was built a little way off from the rest of the estate to isolate the girl, and her search was leading her away from the manor and the surrounding fields and gardens. The thought spurred her to go faster. Did something happen to Alice? Everyone knew that the girl was no ordinary Baskerville, but she was still one of them, and she was only a child. The thought that something might have gotten to her made Psyche’s stomach lurch.

She darted through the forest surrounding Alice’s tower, weaving between trees and bushes and jumping over roots, rocks, and streams. Normally, she loved loitering in the greenery – it felt like a place where she could just forget everything, if only for a short while – but now, she wanted nothing more than to minimize the time she spent here.

Leaping the familiar brook that told her she was almost out of the forest, Psyche burst through the tree line, the tower soaring into the sky in front of her. It was beyond any doubt now that the building was the source of the sudden surge of energy from the Abyss; Psyche couldn’t see anything, but she could _feel_ the shockwaves still radiating off, rolling through the space around the tower, almost making her flinch every time they collided with her body.

 _What’s going_ on?

Psyche ran again, around the Tower’s circumference and towards its entrance. She was passing the bed when something dark and black, lying collapsed on the grass, caught her eye, and she slowed. As she began to make out what it was, Psyche stumbled and nearly fell. She wasn’t prone to clumsiness, but the realization of _what_ she was looking at made all the strength leave her legs.

It was _Oswald._ It was his body, soaked over with blood, and about a meter and a half away, a small dark circular _thing_ had rolled to a stop. It was – it was—

It was his _head. Oswald’s head._

Psyche stared. She didn’t understand. How… _how—_

“Glen?” It was just a whisper, but she recognized that voice. Numbly, Psyche looked up. Her gaze settled, almost serenely, on the golden-haired, emerald-eyed form of Jack Vessalius. His green and gold coat was stained with blood, and his usually neatly-plaited braid was in disarray, tangled and clotted with dirt. He looked like a wreck, but even then, he still managed to be beautiful.

 _“You.”_ Psyche took one step towards him, every other thought fading away. Oh, she wanted to put her hands on him. It was a desperate craving, a _need_ , that possessed her entire body, leaving her with no other aim or even _desire_ but the man standing in front of her. She wanted to leap into his arms so she could stab him with her dagger, again and again and again and again until his entire torso was nothing but a bloody pulp. She wanted to feel his face underneath her fingertips right before she dug her thumbs into his sockets and squeezed his eyeballs out into her palms. She wanted to trace his lips under her touch as she held him down and cut off his tongue and stomp his cranium into the hard-packed dirt they were standing on.

Jack didn’t look at her. His green eyes were glued onto Oswald’s unmoving body, and he seemed completely unaware that Psyche was even present, let alone glaring at him with the blackest loathing filling her heart to the brim, threatening to – no, right on the _verge_ of overflowing and spilling out into the world.

“Who did this to you… Glen?” he asked, jarringly, eerily, like Oswald was still alive and capable of hearing him, let alone replying. Psyche didn’t understand. Why was he saying that? What _right_ did he have to say that, when this was – this was – _All because of you, Jack?_

She took another step towards him, but then her foot knocked against something and she froze, her entire body going numb at the sudden resurgence of awareness. She didn’t have to look down to know what her shoe was making contact with.

 _This could be a dream,_ she thought dully. _Glen-sama will get up now, looking at me in surprise that I would ever dare let my foot come in contact with him. And I’ll smile and apologize and ask him if he needs anything and everything will be back to normal. Glen-sama will get up now, and he’ll tell me I was having a bad dream. He will. Oswald will._

“I used B-Rabbit,” Jack murmured. His eyes were empty. He didn’t seem to be _seeing_ anything. Psyche wanted to tear him apart, limb from limb, skin from bone, bone from muscle, but somehow, she couldn’t move. Everything was hitting her all at once, and she didn’t know what to do, what to react to. Jack was talking like he had absolutely no part in this, but this was all his fault. Glen-sama’s head had been separated from his body. She wanted to kill Jack. The immense energy from the Abyss that had sent her running over to the tower was beginning to subside. She still didn’t know where the others were, or if they were okay. Jack was talking like he had absolutely no part in this, but this was all his fault. She still didn’t know where the others were, or if they were okay. She wanted to kill Jack. She’d killed innocent, harmless, helpless people today. The Chains of the World had been severed. Glen-sama’s head had been separated from his body. She didn’t know what Jack was talking about. B-Rabbit? What was B-Rabbit?

“…And killed my own friend.” A tear slipped down Jack’s pale cheek. He staggered towards Glen-sama, still showing no signs of caring about or even noticing Psyche’s existence. The head or the body, there was no indication as to which he was going for, his eyes flitting between the two severed remnants of her master. Psyche wanted to step in his way, she wanted to stop him from laying those filthy hands, hands that didn’t deserve to even clean Glen-sama’s feet, on Oswald, but she was still paralyzed. She watched, silent and motionless, hatred burning in her soul, as Jack stumbled and fell to his knees in front of Glen-sama’s head, reaching out for it. His fingers, fumbling, closed around the – the – she didn’t know what she was supposed to call the decapitated head of her master. Of Oswald.

“Oswald,” Jack muttered, bringing the head into his embrace and cradling it in his chest. His body rocked forward as he buried his nose in Glen-sama’s bloodstained and matted black locks, green eyes squeezed tightly shut as if he was in the greatest pain that existed in the universe.

“Oswald…” It was a sob. _“Oswald…”_

Psyche took another step toward him, mindlessly drawing her dagger. _I’m going to kill you._ He knelt there, helpless and unfocused and completely vulnerable, and she tried to imagine all the ways she could go about making his end as excruciating as possible. Was it possible to somehow make him suffer everything she’d pictured doing to him before he died? Could she make that happen? Could she cut off his tongue to make him unable to speak and gouge out his eyes to make him blind and slice away his ears to make him as close to deaf as she could? Then could she saw off his limbs, stab by stab, until he was just a torso and a head? And then could she break every bone in his body and leave him as a pathetic worm, a wriggling bag of just skin and shattered, splintered collagen? Would she be able to keep him alive during that entire process?

“Jack,” Psyche called lowly. He didn’t respond. She could hear him crying, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed, clutching Oswald’s decapitated head to his chest. The sobs were heartbroken, _choked_ , making Jack’s entire body shudder and seize with each breath that he sucked in.

The sight of his hands on Oswald, on _any_ part of her master, made Psyche’s stomach churn in repulsion. Should she slice them off? Should she cut off each of his fingers first? No, maybe peel off his fingernails before that, for daring to think he could, that he was _allowed,_ to make any sort of contact with Glen-sama?

The thoughts she was having seemed vaguely, slightly, just a little bit, familiar. Confused, her mind sluggish with the shock of everything, Psyche strained to remember when she’d thought such thoughts before. They hadn’t been as strong, as scorching in their intensity of her hatred for Jack back then – more like—

_Psyche glanced over at Oswald, wondering when he was going to say anything about the fair-haired stranger standing doltishly in the middle of one of the gardens of the Baskerville manor. Oswald wasn’t looking at her, though; his purple eyes were fixed on the newcomer, who definitely wasn’t a Baskerville. She couldn’t feel the distortion of the Abyss’ energy even in such fairly close proximity to him. So who was he, and how was he here in the middle of their manor like he was visiting longtime friends?_

_“Psyche,” Oswald said finally, glancing in her direct as the stranger noticed them and began to jog over, a large smile spreading across his face. “This is Jack Vessalius.”_

So Oswald really knows him. _Psyche was bewildered. Oswald didn’t have friends, aside from her – and, well, Lacie, but Lacie was his sister. She hadn’t heard anything about a Jack from him, let alone_ Jack Vessalius. _It was surprising; she wouldn’t have imagined that Oswald of all people would have ever been socializing with someone outside of the Baskerville household. Especially not someone who was from one of the other noble families. Especially not someone of the Vessalius household, fairly low-ranking within the social and political sphere of the kingdom. And especially not with_ Jack Vessalius, _whom Psyche had heard about. He was the child of Viscount Vessalius, but he had been born out of wedlock and had climbed the ranks of the community as he grew, rather than been born into a position of social standing._

 _Still, if Oswald trusted him to just_ be here, _Psyche wasn’t going to voice her objections. Even though she’d have to wait and see how she felt about this Jack Vessalius._

_The subject of her suspicion reached them, still smiling brightly. “Oswald!” he chirped. As befitting of his appearance, he had a smooth, almost melodic voice. Everything about his physical features reminded her of the spring; long golden hair tied in a graceful braid behind him, pale, delicate skin unmarred by the sun, pretty emerald eyes. The effect was bolstered by his choice of clothing – a emerald green and gold jacket and a white shirt and pants, white boots with a dab of black at the toes. From his left ear hung a single magenta-colored earring._

_It was all so_ soft. _He was indeed reminiscent of his father and his half-brothers, whom she’d met on a few occasions before – but what Psyche found more remarkable than that was that despite the undeniable fact that he had similar hair and eye color as his family, she somehow didn’t think he looked very alike with the rest of the Vessaliuses. Maybe it was the fact that there were subtle little differences between Jack Vessalius and the others that made all the difference, especially with a face as handsome as his. His hair was less blonde, more gold, and his green eyes were a shade deeper, starker, than his half-brothers or his father._

_“Jack.” Oswald’s voice was calm, a sharp contrast to Jack’s bubbliness, but Psyche could hear the surprising happiness there. It was subtle, and not just anyone would be able to pick up on it, because Oswald was fairly hard to read, but she did. It was nice to hear from him, she decided._

_“And who’s this?” Jack asked eagerly, his eyes turning to Psyche. Their gazes met, and Psyche had to consciously order herself not to show on her face the sudden eeriness that swept over her in that moment. Her focus narrowed sharply until it was solely and completely on the newcomer in front of her, unease permeating her being as she studied him._

_What was he? Staring at the man, Psyche was faced with an overwhelming feeling of flat nothingness hidden behind a thin veneer of amicability. Usually when she met a person she got a sense of_ something, _but with Jack Vessalius there was just… hollow space._

_“This is Psyche.” Oswald introduced her, oblivious to the thoughts pinging around her mind. “An… acquaintance of mine.”_

_Slightly recovering from her uneasiness, Psyche side-eyed Oswald, mildly annoyed but also amused by his description of her. An_ acquaintance, _really?_

 _“I’m his friend,” she declared, smiling at Jack and ignoring the slightly embarrassed look Oswald gave her. “Nice to meet you, Jack.” She wasn’t really sure if that was true or not, but if this was a friend of Oswald’s, there was no sense in being unwelcoming, at least for now – despite the fact that a part of her was questioning Oswald’s choice of_ friends _. Then again, it_ was _rather plain to see why it was Jack Vessalius, of all people, that someone as socially awkward as Oswald had uncharacteristically apparently taken a liking to. He seemed open and friendly, even without a real conversation exchanged between them, despite that_ slightly _disconcerting thing about him that she couldn’t put her finger on and seemed to slip out of her grasp every time she tried to get a hold of it._

_“It’s an honor to personally meet a Baskerville,” Jack said, returning her smile a tad bit bashfully. “I’m Jack, Psyche-san – but you probably know that already.”_

_Psyche raised an eyebrow at him. “Oswald is a Baskerville,” she pointed out. “It shouldn’t be your first time personally meeting one of us. Is it only an honor with me?” She was joking, and she could tell that Jack could tell, but that didn’t stop him from blushing ever-so-slightly._

_“Oh – you’re right,” Oswald’s friend stammered, rubbing the back of his head. “Well, to be frank with you, it’s hard for me to think of Oswald as a Baskerville. Or Lacie. You all seem so mysterious and closed-off. It feels like you’re the first Baskerville I’m meeting, Psyche-san.”_

_“Lacie?” Psyche repeated, blinking at the mention of her friend. “Oh, I see. You probably met Lacie before Oswald, didn’t you?”_

_“Yes.” Jack looked surprised. “How did you know?”_

_“I really can’t imagine Oswald on his own becoming close enough with a stranger to let them into the Baskerville mansion,” she admitted. Well, she_ was _being completely honest. Oswald gave her another embarrassed look, which she ignored pointedly again. “But Lacie? She would. You two met through her, didn’t you?”_

_“Yes.” This time it was Oswald who confirmed her suspicion._

_It was probably from his soft spot for his little sister that Oswald had let Jack stick around so close to the Baskerville manor, Psyche thought. But, studying her friend, it wasn’t difficult for her to tell that he genuinely seemed to like Jack. Whatever the start of their closeness had been, it had evidently evolved to be sincere on Oswald’s part._

_On Jack’s part… was it?_

_“That’s so cruel to Oswald, though.” Jack defended his friend, even though all three of them could see that he looked amused too. “I’m sure he could have approached me if he wanted to – right, Oswald?”_

_“Don’t make him answer. I_ highly _doubt that,” Psyche replied jokingly. Oh, she was being too uptight. There was no way this bumbling, amicable man could possibly be any concern to the Baskervilles. Sure, he might have probably been involved in some slight political finagling since he had risen from an unacknowledged illegitimate child to someone who had contact with the Baskerville household, but they were, well, the_ Baskervilles. _Even without the powers of the Abyss, they were the most esteemed of the noble families, while the Vessaliuses were fairly subordinate in the unspoken hierarchy. Lacie liked this Jack, Oswald liked him too, and Psyche found that he was already growing on her as well. It might be interesting to have him around the manor from now on._

_“Psyche-san!” Jack complained to her jibe at Oswald’s social abilities. She laughed. It was a genuine laugh on her part, Psyche realized with slight surprise, as she spoke again. “Just call me Psyche.”_

_She didn’t care for the formalities. If Jack was going to be friendly enough with Oswald and Lacie to refer to them casually, as she had already heard him do so, then she was alright with him referring to her casually, too._

_“Oh, can I?” Jack looked delighted, to Psyche’s amusement. No, there was definitely no way that she had to worry about him, she reassured herself – once again disregarding the slight unease that rippled through her mind as she looked at Jack Vessalius._

She remembered now. She had been wondering how Jack could possibly be associated with Oswald in any way, back then. Now she was wondering how Jack could possibly dare lay a finger on Oswald’s body. A twig snapped under her foot as she took another step towards him.

“Oswald,” Jack cried as he rocked back and forth, cradling Oswald’s head in his arms. _“Oswald…”_

Psyche didn’t get it. She didn’t get _him._

“Why did you do it?” she asked, her hand trembling on her dagger. Before she killed him – and she _would_ – she wanted to hear it. _Why?_ She thought he and her and Oswald were the closest friends. She thought they were inseparable because of their shared pain for Lacie. She thought – she thought they all meant _something_ to Jack. But—

It was only then that Jack finally looked at her. Their eyes met, and Psyche shuddered, partly from abhorrence and partly from recognition.

That vast _nothingness_ that she had sensed when she was first faced with Jack came back twofold; it was all that she felt like she was staring at, even though she was looking directly into his eyes. It was as if he wasn’t even a person – instead, she was gazing at nothing but a flat, endless expanse of emptiness, vacant and hollow now that his veneer of amicability had completely shattered.

Tears streamed down Jack’s face. “Psyche,” he cried, reaching out a hand towards her. “You… you’re alive. You—”

His fingers nearly brushed against the bottom of her cloak, but Psyche flicked the fabric away in a purely instinctive motion, the thought of letting those hands touch any part of her making disgust curdle in her stomach like sour milk.

Jack didn’t seem to care. “—’re alive.” His voice was hushed, nothing more than a whisper.

She didn’t want to hear it – whatever _it_ even was. “Answer me,” Psyche demanded. “Why did you – how _could you_ —”

There were no proper words to finish that sentence. _How could you do this to the Baskervilles? How could you do this to Oswald? How could you do this to Lacie? How could you do this to_ me?

To her displeasure, Jack seemed to understand exactly what she was asking even without her forming a full sentence. He knew her too well, and Psyche despised it. She wished she could go back in time and personally rip apart all the moments that she had spent laughing with and poking fun at this man. The thought that he knew so much about her was now revolting to think about.

“I – I—” he stammered. “—just wanted to grant – grant _it_ …”

Grant it? Grant _what? What_ could have possibly been so important to him that he did _this?_ Psyche opened her mouth to demand that he speak more clearly, but a guttural rumble interrupted her, followed by a cracking sound. Her eyes widened – there was only one sound that that could possibly be.

“Shit—” Psyche swore, just as a black beam of energy burst from the ground a few meters away from them, growing with monstrous speed as more similar beams exploded from the soil around the clearing. She lost sight of Jack as she was thrust backwards by the shockwaves of energy rippling outward from the dark power, which she recognized as being from the Abyss almost the second it appeared. Flying through the air, she braced herself mentally for a painful collision with the ground, but it never came. Instead, her fall was suddenly slowed, and she found herself floating.

Only then did Psyche realize that everything had gone quiet. Bewildered, she cracked her eyelids open just a little, then gasped in shock, opening them fully in horror at what she was seeing.

She was suspended in the middle of a sea of pitch-black, extending everywhere as far as her eyes could make out. Psyche didn’t need an explanation to know what had happened.

_This is the Abyss._


	3. Recollection I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Psyche hadn't expected to see anyone else in the Abyss, and on the off chance that she did, she would have expected, and preferred, another Baskerville. But the silver-haired man that she'd found was someone unfamiliar to her.

She had to get out.

Psyche had no idea how long she’d been in the Abyss, not even how long it had been for _her._ Dealing with how much time had passed in the outside world, that was an even more complicated matter that made her head ache terribly to think about. But before she could bother to worry about any of that, she had to get out. That was first and foremost.

It was… _exhausting_ to be in the Abyss for so long, even for a Baskerville like herself. Not because it was physically difficult for her – even before she was a Baskerville, Psyche was one of _them,_ and the Abyss was as natural to her body as the various realities that it contained within its infinity. But the incessant, insistent Chains getting a whiff of the energy she was emitting and coming after her, she found that they were disturbing.

At first, it hadn’t been too bad. Psyche was no stranger to Chains. She had been around them since she could remember, and the majority of them were simple, fairly easy to take care of, even without assistance from or the need to summon [Helio](https://mblogthumb-phinf.pstatic.net/MjAyMDAyMTFfMzEg/MDAxNTgxMzk3NzExMzEy.pbAJ5bp6DPwImANN1OcJP6h9Ib4FvNnx1GCgbYkPM2Ug.2650UcviO2gBqfIKFJWjWMiL3HKQ-iLDnE47elh9MJwg.PNG.ads12300/%ED%97%AC%EB%A6%AC%EC%98%A4.PNG?type=w800), her own Chain. But as time went on and the Chain attacks only increased in frequency, Psyche found herself getting worn out of all the fighting. Stronger Chains tried to target her, and sometimes they would even collaborate and attack together in an attempt to get the best of her eventually. And while she cut them all down, it was like she was living on a battlefield, in the middle of a war. More than that, it reminded her of the past, and that was more harrowing than she’d expected it to be. Had she really only come this far since finding the Baskervilles?

Psyche wove between another series of lashes of the barbed legs of the Chain she was currently fighting and slashed her [sword](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/FEfnU1buRz1BMCtNq7srVevd9XGIgFfKi-SD2t1bRVsabvCq1w2HMHsVL9dgOv9RFTDaoS7OgHT79LzU9SaZQkLIJWCn9_CNM7KE7sG-wwIsrl5-RfOxmiZuGYmdNPROyZraqw) down its abdomen, quickly leaping out of range just in case it found it in itself to try to attack her once again. It didn’t though, screaming in pain in a tone that was unnervingly resembling of a human, and began to scramble away. Before it could get very far, though, Psyche dealt the killing blow, slicing off its head with one practiced motion. She watched flatly as it crumbled to dust, the particles floating away and dispersing to nothing.

 _I can’t keep doing this forever._ Even if she somehow found it in herself to be okay with constantly fighting for her life like this, getting over how unnervingly similar it all felt to her previous life before the Baskervilles, she couldn’t just ignore what had happened right before she fell into the Abyss. Was Jack still alive? What happened to the others? What had happened to Alice? She needed to answer all those questions, and more, for herself. She had to get out of here. But how?

Lost in her thoughts, Psyche reached up, unconsciously toying with the rose-gold butterfly [earring](https://my-live-01.slatic.net/p/8c0800d3c47433d7d431734314046c70.jpg) dangling from her left ear.

The Gates to the Abyss… either that, or she’d have to somehow make a pathway herself. But no, that second option was something that she didn’t want to have to resort to. It might draw their eye, and she was hardly willing to take that risk.

Which meant the Gates were her most likely option. Which also meant the problem was ever running across one of the Gates to begin with. And if she found one of them, where would she even end up?

Frustrated despite her unchanging expression, Psyche turned away from the spot where the Chain had fallen and stared out into the vast expanse of blackness. Apart from the Chains that tried to kill her and absorb her energy, it was all she had been able to see for however long she’d been trapped in the Abyss. And it was maddening. Psyche wondered if this simple, consistent visual monotony was enough to drive someone mad. If it was, she must surely be going at least a little bit crazy by now.

And what about the others? Were they alright? Did they know what exactly was going on, why they had suddenly been plunged into the Abyss? Were they getting attacked by Chains constantly like she was? Well, there was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t be. She wished she could say that she was confident they would all be fine, but she wasn’t. A few of these combined attacks from Chains, she found, were rather strenuous to deal with. Nothing that truly threatened her life, because Chains didn’t have the intelligence to properly coordinate effective strategies, but she did find herself tired afterward if she went on for too long. And many of the others weren’t as used to combat as she was. Hell, many of the others were just children. Lily, for example. Or even Maylis and Zwei. Even _Orpheus_. They were all too young, too inexperienced. What would they do if they were beset by several Chains like she had been over the time she’d been trapped in the Abyss?

Psyche sighed, banishing the thoughts from her head as best as she could. There was no point worrying about it, anyway. There was nothing she could do for any of them, as much as the fact made her want to clench her fists and glare at the world and scream in frustration. Right now she had to focus on getting out – only then could she be of any use to anyone else.

She had been walking aimlessly for some time when she squinted, stopping momentarily in the spot. Her eyes narrowed, she strained to more clearly make out the spot in the distance, wondering if she was seeing things.

But no, she wasn’t. There was unmistakably something in the distance, a silvery color that was a rather sharp contrast to the pitch-black of the Abyss. Psyche wondered if it was a Chain, putting her hand on the hilt of her sword warily, but she couldn’t sense the energy of any of the creatures of the Abyss. Still, cautious for the sake of being safe rather than sorry, she approached, her fingers closed around her sword just in case.

But as she got closer, she could tell it definitely wasn’t a Chain. No – laying motionless among the dark emptiness was a _human._ At first she thought it might have been one of the other Baskervilles, but soon, to her disappointment, she realized that it wasn’t the case; she didn’t recognize this man. Everything about him, from his long, matted silvery-grey hair to his pale skin to his almost entirely black attire – a black suit jacket, black pants, a black cloak – to the slight gauntness that seemed to be clinging to his body, was unfamiliar to her.

The next thing that registered in Psyche’s was shock. The entire left side of his face was drenched in blood. She wasn’t squeamish, but the sheer volume of the red liquid, especially here in the Abyss where there were almost no humans _to_ bleed, was startling. As she knelt by his side, Psyche could see clearly that the blood was coming from underneath his closed left eye socket. From just how profusely it was bleeding, it was clear that his eyeball itself had sustained irreparable damage, if not been removed outright. The thought made her wince internally, imagining how painful that might have been. No wonder he had fainted from what was no doubt an excruciating ordeal. He definitely wasn’t _dead_ – she could feel the energy of a living human flowing off from him, although it was weak and faint.

 _Forget him, Psyche,_ Helio said. _He doesn’t have anything to do with you. He’ll only become a hindrance._

 _I can’t leave him to die now that I’ve come across him,_ Psyche replied calmly, her hands already moving to try to stop the bleeding. It was another matter if she hadn’t found him, but she couldn’t just walk away after seeing anyone like this.

She could imagine many of her comrades and her friends would disagree with her, and agree with Helio that she should just leave him. He was probably an Illegal Contractor, from the presence of his physical body here in the Abyss, and as a Baskerville Psyche had a responsibility to dispose of Illegal Contractors to prevent them from doing harm. Furthermore, if he was down here, having been dragged when the incuse on his chest completed a full turn, it probably meant he’d already killed people for the desires of whatever Chain he had contracted with.

She _knew_ all that, and maybe he didn’t deserve her help – but as long as she was here, she was going to give it to him. She couldn’t leave someone to die, especially not when she had the capability to save him. Baskervilles didn’t receive medical training – almost all of their wounds regenerated quickly, and the ones that didn’t weren’t ones that could be treated – but _she_ had. She might not be the final and absolute authority on it, but she was well-versed in treating wounds.

Drawing her dagger, she used it to rip off a few long strips of fabric from her [dress](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/pandorahearts/images/6/6e/Image%2824%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20121104114941). As she watched and heard the material tear, though, unexpectedly, her heart clenched painfully. The dress had been Lacie’s, the one that her friend had given to her the day before she was to be cast into the Abyss. Even though she knew Lacie would probably snort at her for suddenly feeling bad because of something she would consider so trivial, even though she knew that ripping a dress, no matter who it was from, was nothing if it meant being able to save this man’s life, Psyche couldn’t help the sudden guilt that swept over her at the thought that she was deliberately damaging the last thing that her friend had given her.

Pushing that out of her mind for the time being, she made sure the strips of purple fabric that had been torn off were reasonably clean. Thankfully, although her dress had been dirtied and stained in some places with blood and dirt during everything that had happened in Sablier, in the Abyss there was nothing to soil the material further, and she’d managed to tear off ribbons that had thankfully been spared by all the debris and soil. Even if it had required using fabric from the cleaner underskirts that made up and gave shape to the dress.

Folding two of the strips into squares and stacking them on top of each other, Psyche carefully pressed them against the injured eye, intent on stopping the bleeding. The man didn’t move a muscle, despite the fact that it must be excruciatingly painful to put pressure on such a serious injury. Still completely unconscious, Psyche guessed.

As she held the fabric down over his left eye, something dawned on her. The man was, without a doubt, alive – but he was too _still._ A fraction of a second later, Psyche realized what the problem was. He wasn’t breathing.

“Helio!” she commanded, and her Chain materialized next to her, his purple eyes full of worry. Not for her patient, she knew, but for her. She understood why; it was certainly a practical inconvenience, maybe even _danger,_ to take such a severely injured person under her care while she was in the Abyss, when Chains could be attacking at any other second. But as long as she had come across this man, Psyche was resolved to do everything she could to keep him alive. How exactly that would happen she didn’t know, considering that with her rudimentary, makeshift medical supplies it would be practically impossible to give this man effective long-term treatment, but… she couldn’t just let him die when she could help it.

“Hold down here,” she ordered Helio, gesturing with her eyes at the fabric she was holding over her patient’s bleeding socket. A brief, displeased hesitation later, he knelt next to her and did as she said, cautiously as to not upset the unconscious man but with enough pressure to help staunch the bleeding. Still, as she wriggled over so she was positioned next to the man’s chest, Psyche could tell that her Chain’s heart wasn’t in what he was doing.

Ignoring the annoyance that flickered inside her at Helio’ reluctance, she lifted herself onto her knees and pressed the heels of her hands down, one on top of the other, on the center of her patient’s chest. Making sure she wasn’t situated to be applying pressure to his bones, Psyche began pumping meticulously, pushing down deeply before coming back up enough so his chest rose completely when she did. She repeated the motions at a brisk speed, searching his face for any sign that he was regaining consciousness. There were none.

“I don’t get why you’re doing this,” Helio said flatly. “What if you’re attacked by another Chain while you’re trying to take care of this guy?”

Psyche ignored his complaints in favor of stopping her up-and-down motion on her patient’s chest and checking to see if he was breathing. She brought her cheek against his face and narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t feel even the faintest puffs of air against her skin.

She hadn’t wanted to resort to this, but there was no hesitation in her mind. The energy rippling from the man’s body was getting weaker by the moment, as expected from someone who was unable to breathe, and if she didn’t do something very soon he’d be as good as dead. He was lucky that she’d managed to stumble across him so soon after he was injured and his lungs compromised.

With a word of warning to Helio, Psyche maneuvered herself so that she could raise the man’s upper body onto her lap, his shoulders flung over her crossed legs and his head tipped slightly back. Taking a deep breath, she leaned down, pinched his nose, and pressed her lips to his. To her vague surprise, his lips were soft – she wouldn’t have expected that, considering he seemed to be an absolute wreck physically, even though she supposed, on a rational basis, those things had nothing to do with each other.

Her lips still sealed over her patient’s, Psyche breathed twice into his mouth before straightening and pushing down into his chest again. As she was pressing firmly, she felt the shocked look Helio was giving her. She would have rolled her eyes, but if she wanted to save this man then she didn’t want her focus to waver for even a second.

She had pushed twelve times when suddenly, the man coughed, his entire body jerking with the motion. Taken by surprise, Psyche removed her hands and studied him intently as he wheezed. His hand came up grip her wrist and clutch tightly, probably because he was subconsciously looking for something to hold onto. Psyche let him squeeze her arm as he got through his hacking fit, patting his shoulder reassuringly. She would have done more, such as stroking his hair, but she knew that different touches were welcomed differently by different people. A touch too intimate might spook him more than anything, given the fact that he probably had absolutely no idea what was going on around him.

For his part, Helio was still holding down the makeshift bandage as best as he could with her patient’s sharp movements, annoyance written all over his face.

As the man’s coughing subsided, he let out a loud groan of pain, his hand flying up to his left eye. When it finally registered that there were people around him, and that someone’s hand was already flattened over the weeping injury, his entire body went stiff. His one uninjured eye flew open, and Psyche felt her own eyes widening as their gazes met.

His eye was _red._ Not the vivid, bloody ruby-red that she remembered staining Lacie’s eyes, but a shallower wine-red. (At the back of her mind, she realized she thought it was still very beautiful, just like Lacie’s eyes had been.) Nevertheless, it was unmistakably a red eye, and it could only mean one thing.

_A Child of Ill Omen?_

Psyche’s mind spun dizzyingly. How could this be real? He wasn’t a Baskerville, that she was sure of. She’d never seen him in all the years since she’d come to the Baskerville estate, and he didn’t give off the distorted energy of one of her Clanmates. So how could he possibly be a Child of Ill Omen, beings who were created as a result of the powerful ripples in the Abyss that Glen Baskerville’s existence caused?

And yet, she couldn’t deny that he _was_ one, no more than she could deny that he wasn’t a Baskerville. Now that she’d gotten a look at his red eye and was aware of what he was, she could pick up the signature bizarreness of a Child of Ill Omen in the energy flickering from him. It was reminiscent of Lacie and Vincent – except for one thing. The outlandishness of his aura was much less potent, much less jarring, than those of the other two Children of Ill Omen that Psyche knew. It was so faint that she hadn’t even noticed it before seeing his red eye, whereas in Vincent and Lacie’s cases, she had immediately been able to tell that something was very different about them. Why? Was it because this man was dying?

And what was she going to _do_ with this information? Children of Ill Omen were abominations, the Baskervilles said. They threatened the world’s existence because of their ability to connect with the Core of the Abyss. They weren’t supposed to exist, it was the Baskervilles’ duty to get rid of them – and here she was, a _Baskerville,_ obliviously trying to save the life of one.

“Let’s just leave him,” Helio insisted again, seeing the shock that ripped through her eyes for a split-second as she comprehended everything, though he continued diligently holding down on the bandage. “You see what he is for yourself. If we’re here longer you might be in danger.”

Psyche knew he had a point, just as she knew that Helio was only concerned about her. He put her first in everything, after all; he always had. Saving a Child of Ill Omen, no matter how unusual he seemed even among them (no Glen to accompany, a weaker aura than was normal), might have unprecedented consequences in the future. Oswald would have been displeased if he knew what she was doing. He’d cast Lacie into the Abyss because she was a Child of Ill Omen; he’d put the world before his own little sister, and Psyche knew just how precious Lacie had been to him. He would have expected her to be able to do something as simple as abandon this stranger for the safety of the world, she imagined.

But even though she knew all that – meeting this man’s faint, frightened gaze, she wouldn’t do it. Child of Ill Omen or not, she wasn’t going to leave anyone to die like this. Psyche knew she could be absolutely pitiless, and she _had_ been absolutely pitiless more times than she could count in the past. But if she was in this situation, when she _could_ show some mercy, she wanted to. Regardless of her obligations as a Baskerville, regardless of the fact that this man had been unfortunately born as something so stigmatized by the entire world.

 _Oswald would be disappointed in me,_ she thought grimly.

Her patient groaned again, his one eye flicking desperately to and fro, like he was trying to get his bearings and find something, anything, that could comfort him. He must be terrified, cold, and in pain, Psyche thought. It was an awful, awful feeling, and not one that she could in good conscience simply let someone suffer through. Especially not when she knew all too intimately what it was like.

“It’s alright,” she told him softly, brushing strands of dirty, blood-stained silver hair out of his remaining eye. “I’m going to do everything that I can for you.” Whether that entailed saving his life, or at least holding him as he died, she didn’t know, but whatever it was she was going to do it.

That one wine-red eye fixated on her and widened. Unexpectedly, the man reached upward towards Psyche’s face, feebly threading his slim, pale fingers through a stray lock of hair framing her face. From just that simple motion, she could tell how weak he was from blood loss and whatever else he’d suffered before she’d found him. It was a wonder he could even move his hand, let alone reach towards her.

But then the man opened his mouth. His voice was nothing but a strained, ragged croak, but Psyche heard it regardless in the endless silence of the Abyss.

“Emily-sama…”

He cupped her face with his hand, fingers stroking her cheek with unnerving tenderness. His skin was as cold as death and it made Psyche want to squeeze his hands in hers to warm them up, but she didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t want to startle the man, especially in his current state. He was already hanging on by a thread.

 _“Emily-sama…”_ He said the name with the desperation of a dying man. Psyche shuddered, almost involuntarily. The way the syllables rolled off his tongue, fervent and frenzied, it reminded her so, so much of the way Jack had cried over Oswald.

“I’m sorry,” the man whispered. His eye teared up, droplets slipping down his cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Clearly, the man was delirious, not that he could be blamed. Psyche’s gaze flicked over to Helio. Her Chain looked thoroughly unimpressed by the unexpected display of sadness, his eyes fixated irritably on the spot where her patient’s hand was making contact with her cheek. It was obvious he didn’t like that this man that neither of them knew anything about was touching her, let alone touching her _face._ And she had to admit that it was odd to let a stranger lay a hand on her so intimately. Such touches were reserved in her mind for her closest friends, and her closest friends only. Like Oswald. Or Lacie, before she died. Or Helio, or Nesta, or Lottie. Or Jack, before he—

But it couldn’t be helped. A wounded person needed comforting, and while she was loath to give him false solace, she needed to make sure he was in the best state possible that he could be. (Which wasn’t even looking good to begin with, considering his injury.) Playing the part, Psyche wrapped her hand around the one on her cheek, squeezing gently and entwining her fingers with his. “I have you,” she assured him.

To her muted relief, her words seemed to bring the man an unspeakable amount of comfort. His entire body relaxed, the painful tension draining from his muscles, and his eye squeezed shut again. He tightened the hold of his cold, clammy hand on hers, almost painfully, like he was trying to make sure she was really there and really solid.

“You’re here,” he murmured, his voice tremulous, choked, but tinged with joy. “Emily-sama, I did… it. You’ll never be alone again. I’ll never leave you… again…”

The guilt in his voice made Psyche wonder just who this Emily had been to her patient, plus the way he was touching her cheek, holding her hand, clearly mistaking her for Emily… it was plain to see that whoever she was, she meant a lot to him. _I’ll never leave you again._ Maybe he’d become an Illegal Contractor for this Emily’s sake. It was often tragic events that led humans to become so desperate as to seek out something so dangerous, something so doomed to make them suffer. It made her sad. This man thought he’d succeeded in something, but… even though she had no idea what that could be, she doubted it would turn out well. For him and for anyone involved. Even this Emily.

Her patient’s eye drifted shut, the effort of speaking clearly too much for him to handle in his state, but she could tell that he hadn’t lost consciousness yet. His hand still weakly gripped hers, trembling and feeble but with the kind of zealous insistence of a person clinging onto their last thread of hope. It was clear that he was completely mistaking her for Emily.

“Just relax,” Psyche murmured, stroking the man’s cheek with the thumb of her other hand. Despite the grime and dust caked over him, his skin was surprisingly smooth and soft. “I’m here with you now.”

That seemed to do the trick. His grip on her fingers loosened, and his body relaxed with a tiny hint of contentment. Psyche shifted slightly so his head was comfortably tucked onto her lap.

“How’s the bleeding?” she asked Helio, keeping her voice to a whisper in an attempt to minimize the disturbance to her patient.

In spite of the misgivings about caring for the man that he’d made abundantly clear several times over, Helio answered her question promptly and softly, which she appreciated. “It’s lessening.”

That was a relief. The first and foremost concern here was to lessen the bleeding. Everything else could come after that… although now, Psyche wasn’t sure _how_ she would go about any further treatments. She would have liked to properly be disinfecting the wound once its bleeding completely stopped, but she had nothing to do that with. She didn’t even have a single bar of soap. Moreover, even if she somehow managed to treat him well enough so that his eye, or more likely his empty eye socket, recovered in the best condition possible, how long did she intend to stick around him?

Psyche pushed the concerns from her head. She could worry about that later.

Using one of the remaining strips that she’d torn from her dress, she gestured for Helio to remove his hand and then carefully wrapped the long ribbon of fabric over and around her patient’s head, binding the makeshift bandage cautiously onto his injured eye. Her focus zeroed in on the task as she tried to make sure the pressure of the bandage wasn’t too loose nor too tight, and she only vaguely felt Helio’ eyes on her as she did so.

Once she was satisfied that the bandage was secured properly, Psyche leaned back with a deep exhale, suddenly feeling tired after the sudden rush of adrenaline that had briefly taken over her body upon noticing someone so severely injured. She wished she could close her eyes and take a nap – she had hardly managed to get any sleep since she’d arrived in the Abyss, and though it didn’t affect her as much as it would the others, it was starting to catch up to her.

Helio was glancing around warily, his bright purple eyes sharp with caution. “Psyche, let’s go,” he whispered. “How much longer are you going to stay here? You’ve done enough for this man.”

“No, Heli,” Psyche replied firmly, knowing he wasn’t going to stop until she gave him a direct answer. “Now that I’ve begun treating him, it would be ridiculous to just leave.”

“It’s even more ridiculous to stay here and put yourself in harm’s way for a stranger.” Helio’s voice was testy “He’ll only hold you back if you need to run or fight.”

Psyche sighed. “I _know_ that. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Helio shook his head, looking frustrated. “Why are you so insistent on being nice when you can?” he muttered, but she could tell from his tone that he had resigned himself to the situation. “Sometimes I wish you would always be as merciless as you are on missions.”

“I can’t be anything _but_ merciless on missions,” Psyche pointed out, “but I want to help when I can, outside of that.”

“Because no one helped you?” Helio asked quietly, and maybe, _maybe_ , a tiny bit sadly. Psyche’s eyes narrowed. He was treading on dangerous waters, and for a second the thought flitted through her mind that she could have him de-materialize again, but that would be too abrupt and a little too harsh.

“Yes, because no one helped me,” she admitted. She didn’t say anything more about it, and Helio had already known he had touched on a sensitive topic – he didn’t push the issue.

Instead, his voice was dejected when he spoke again. “You should think of only yourself. You’d be safer that way, Psyche.”

“You know I won’t do that.” Her helpless patient, as much as she didn’t want to think admit it, reminded her of herself back _then._ She could think of only herself when it was necessary, when her life was in immediate danger. Then she could be absolutely remorseless without the slightest bit of hesitation, because she had to get back to Oswald, to Lottie, to Nesta. And she needed to get out of here to find Jack so she could kill him. But right now… she could afford to extend a little help to this person whom no one else was willing or able to assist.

“I do know.”

They fell silent. Psyche’s legs felt numb and uncomfortable from the pressure of her patient’s head and upper shoulders, but she didn’t move, not wanting to wake him.

She found her thoughts going back to the outside world, to the Baskerville estate, to the others. Were they all okay? Had anyone escaped the Abyss yet? Had a new Glen been found? What had happened to Oswald – to his body? And what about _Jack?_

Thinking of those two men made Psyche’s eyes smart, even though none of the tears came close to falling. Her chest felt compressed. How could it all have changed so suddenly? It seemed like just a few days ago that she, Jack, and Oswald had been sitting in the green grasses of the gardens of the Baskerville estate, enjoying the sunshine and the cool breeze. She and Jack would tease Oswald, and he’d look bemused – and if it was a rare occasion, he’d crack a small, slight smile. They’d discuss music that they were working on, the future of the noble houses, books that they’d read, the king, strange experiences that they’d had over the years… everything. And sometimes, if Psyche pictured it hard enough, she could remember Lacie there too, harmonizing the notes of Oswald’s compositions with her.

She remembered how much she’d liked Jack. She never thought she’d get so attached to someone so quickly, especially when that someone had given her a sense of such unease when she first met him. But there was something about Jack Vessalius’ charm that just _burrowed_ its way under her skin, from his infectious, almost ditzy smile to his carefree cheeriness to his thoughtful amicability and his deep insightfulness. Around him, she seemed to forget everything totally – that she was a Baskerville, that she had a responsibility to her master, Glen-sama, that she was being and later, had been, compliant with Lacie’s damnation. That she _might_ have been able to do _something_ for Lacie, but she’d chosen not to. He was just fun, _enjoyable,_ to have around.

_“For goodness’ sake, Jack – get down from there.”_

_“Why?” Jack grinned down at her, as easily as if the concept of his foot slipping and his body plummeting five meters down and shattering his spine was entirely unheard of. He danced lightly across the branch, arms extended out either way for balance. The hem of his green and gold jacket blowing gently side-to-side in the wind gave Psyche anxiety to watch._

_“You should try it too, Psyche. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s fun!” As if to emphasize his words, he gave a little hop. Psyche nearly screamed in horror as she bore witness to the split second in which his feet left the branch and then landed on it again with a light thump._

_“See? Perfectly safe.”_

_Psyche didn’t need him to tell her that – or anything about what it was like to be climbing trees. She’d done so before more times than she could count – she’d scaled tree trunks, darted across branches, leaped from treetop to treetop, all without breaking a sweat. And what she knew for a fact from that experience was that it was_ not _perfectly safe – not even for her, let alone for Jack. He had (presumably) never been trained for the balance or finesse needed to navigate trees skillfully, and unlike her, who was a Baskerville, if he broke a bone then it wouldn’t be healing automatically._

_“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she chided, even though his smile was contagious, as always, and she felt the corners of her lips turning up against her will._

_Jack noticed it, of course. Looking triumphant, he climbed easily down to a lower branch and jumped lightly to the ground from there, straightening and dusting himself off. “And you do?” he asked, a hint of lighthearted challenge in his voice. “Have you climbed trees before, Psyche?”_

_“I have, actually,” she retorted, though her voice was mild and she could tell they were bantering. Jack’s eyes lit up._

_“Show me!” He rocked back eagerly on his heels, like a little boy about to receive his first Christmas present. Psyche found it rather cute. And she didn’t mind showing off a little – it had been some time since she’d climbed, and she could use a bit of practice. Today she’d thankfully opted to avoid any of the fancy dresses that were part of her wardrobe – instead she’d_ [ _worn_ ](https://cdn.donmai.us/original/3f/4a/__shuzen_akua_rosario_vampire_drawn_by_takae_poupee_en_biscuit__3f4a9fa767ed03473d90453180e4e8e0.jpg) _her usual black jacket, its cravat fluttering gently in the wind, over her black-skirted, white-sleeved one-piece dress. She was glad she hadn’t listened to that little voice this morning asking her if she didn’t want to be a little fancier than normal today, if only to befuddle Oswald. (Her old whimsicality coming through, no doubt; he seemed to take it as a strange occasion whenever she put more than her usual amount of care into her appearance, and it was funny to watch.) Even though she would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy dressing up (or catching Oswald off-guard), a floor-length dress wasn’t exactly ideal for tree-climbing. What she was wearing now, though, was. It was her favorite outfit, and she wore it in almost any casual setting._

_She’d also worn it plenty of times before while fighting, so she had a guarantee of its maneuverability, even in trees._

_Without hesitating, Psyche leaped upward to grab a tree-branch hanging about a meter above her head. Hooking her fingers around it, she swung herself up easily, her feet digging into the bark of the trunk so she wasn’t just hauling her entire body weight up with her arms. Stranding up straight on the branch, she repeated the process, jumping and pulling, until she was perched on the highest branch that could support her weight, about fifteen meters above Jack’s head. Glancing down at him, she was greeted to the sight of her friend gazing at her with wide green eyes, his mouth open with shock. That innocent befuddlement in Jack’s countenance made her smile, amused._

_“Wow!” he called up. “And here I thought tree-climbing was_ my _specialty!”_

_“She can do more in trees.”_

_Not expecting the new voice, Psyche blinked, recognizing Oswald as he emerged from the trees behind them. Normally she would have sensed him, but she had been too distracted by tree-climbing and by Jack to notice._

_Jack looked startled, clearly not having expected his friend, before a big smile lit his already bright face up. “Oswald!” he called, waving happily. Oswald returned the gesture with hesitation, with a kind of endearing awkwardness that made Psyche giggle._

_“So what else can Psyche do in trees?” Jack asked, glancing up at her as Oswald came to stand by his side. Both of them were looking in her direction now. Jack with eager curiosity and Oswald with an expression of muted, lazy mirth._

_“She can jump from tree to tree, for one.”_

_“What?” As Psyche watched, Jack turned to Oswald, his face painted in astonishment. “You’re joking with me, Oswald.”_

_Oswald looked mildly puzzled. “I’m not. Why would I joke about that?”_

_It would have annoyed anyone unfamiliar with Oswald’s ineptness when it came to these things, but Psyche knew that Jack was already far past that phase. The Vessalius glanced up at her incredulously. “Seriously?”_

_“Seriously.” Psyche was amused. She hadn’t been intending to reveal that, but since Oswald had taken it upon himself to, there was no point in denying it._

_“No joke. No exaggeration. If you do it, you won’t fall and die. Really.” Jack’s eyebrow was raised._

_“Really.” She laughed._

_“Show me then!” He paused, looking embarrassed at how blatant he was being about his anxiousness to see it with his own eyes. “If it doesn’t run the risk of killing you, I mean.”_

_With a quiet snort, Psyche surveyed her surroundings. There was another branch of another tree, about three meter’s length of empty air between where she was currently perched and the spot she’d zeroed in on. Briefly, she studied the branch of interest. It was thick and looked healthy and strong, no signs of rot, decay, or weakness that indicated that it might fall under her weight. Good._

_Her observations taking no more than a second, Psyche ran down the length of the branch she was currently on, delicately balancing on the curved bark under her boots, and jumped. She soared through the air, feeling the brief exhilaration of the wind ripping through strands of her hair and against her face – right before she landed neatly on the branch she’d been aiming for in a crouched position, one hand on the bark to steady herself. On her left ear, she could feel her earring shaking softly with her sudden movements._

_“Where did you_ learn _that?” Jack exclaimed, gazing up at her with wide, astonished eyes._

_Psyche kept her grimace internal. There was only one person in this world who knew the details on that, and he would never, ever tell. Instead, she smiled down at the blonde-haired man, a bit surprised at now naturally it came. She supposed it was the scary thing about Jack Vessalius. How easy it was to feel close to him. How easy it was to care about him._

_“Someone taught me, when I was young.”_

Yes, those days had been rather pleasant, Psyche reflected bitterly. Her patient, his head on her lap, let out a soft moan of discomfort. Drawn from her memories, she stroked his cheek carefully as a way of reassurance, brushing off some of the grime on his face. That seemed to help him relax again, and he fell silent once more.

Unfortunately, that also meant Psyche’s mind inevitably went back to life outside the Abyss – _before_ the Abyss. She remembered starkly, almost _too_ starkly, how Jack had made Oswald happy the same way he’d made her happy. Like her, Oswald was always burdened, she knew. Burdened with the weight of being Glen. Burdened with the weight of believing that it was because of him that his sister a Child of Ill Omen, although that was going against what Lacie had wanted for him. Burdened with the knowledge that he’d have to kill her one day soon. Burdened with the guilt of eventually damning her to a fate worse than death. Burdened with the existence of Alice around him, with her black hair and pale skin and her free spirit that seemed to come right from Lacie.

Jack had been able to make Oswald forget about all that, if only a little bit, if only for a little while. It was why Oswald, so aloof and shy, had always seemed so comfortable and content in Jack’s presence. Psyche knew how he felt – although frankly, a few times she’d found herself wondering about the exact nature of Oswald’s feelings towards Jack. She’d even asked him about it.

_“You know so many of the noblewomen would kill to see you like this, Oswald?” Jack asked as Oswald looked around blearily, having fallen asleep under the shade of a huge, ancient tree about a kilometer into the vast gardens surrounding the main Baskerville estate. Jack and Psyche had wandered out to find him, Lacie going the other way, and it just so happened that they had picked the right direction to start out._

_“…Hm?” Oswald sounded distracted – clearly, he wasn’t processing Jack’s words in his mind yet._

_Jack stayed silent until his friend had gotten his bearings. “I said so many of the noblewomen would kill to see you like this.”_

_“Like this?” Looking around, a faint tinge of bewilderment settled over Oswald’s face. “What is there to see?”_

_“No, Oswald. He means they would kill to see you looking so relaxed, because that would mean you trust them,” Psyche explained. She was long past getting annoyed at how oblivious Oswald could be with these things (even though he was so incredibly perceptive with others), and so was Jack._

_Oswald looked uncomfortable. “I doubt that,” he said. “I don’t… know many women, except for Lacie.”_

_Psyche raised her eyebrow. “Me?” she pointed out. “Nesta? Helen? Celia? Any one of the plentiful female Baskervilles in this estate?”_

_“That’s completely different,” he protested flatly, awkwardly shifting on his spot huddled next among the tree roots. As he did so, his foot made contact with a stone, sending it rolling gently away from them down the slight incline upon which the tree was growing. A startled bird, crisp red feathers vivid against the greenery, flew away. Oswald’s purple eyes followed it._

_“Oswald, have you ever even thought about a relationship with a woman?” Jack asked, flopping down next to the black-haired man, his back against the tree trunk. Psyche did the same, making herself comfortable on Oswald’s other side. Despite his usually chilly-looking demeanor, she could feel the warmth of his body pressed against hers._

_“No…” Oswald responded, sounding faintly bemused at the idea, like it was an entirely foreign concept to him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been interested in a relationship. Glen-sama has never been in one, either – there’s no need for me to be.”_

_Psyche was silent as Oswald explained himself, wondering if her friend perhaps had no thought for romantic relationships in general. As long as she’d known him she’d never seen him interested in anyone that way. In fact, the closest she could say he had ever gotten to that territory was when he was with none other than Jack. Though even that relationship didn’t seem so cut and dry._

_“What about you, Psyche?” Jack asked. “Have you ever thought about meeting some nice guy?”_

_Psyche paused for a moment. Ever since a person long in the past she hadn’t ever seriously,_ truly, considered _a relationship. She’d run across people she was attracted to, and people who were attracted to her, but that was the only extent to which it had genuinely gone. There_ were _a few times when she’d had to fake it for the sake of getting jobs done, but those had never lasted for long. She couldn’t dream of a partner, not when she had so many things to be worrying about._

_“Not really,” she admitted. “I doubt I could commit to a relationship anyway.”_

_Next to her, Oswald shifted again._

_“You think so? Well, I bet there’s also plenty of noblemen vying for your attention, Psyche,” Jack commented._

_She had to think about that. It was true that she’d had plenty of noblemen – and noblewomen, on occasion – that she met at social events making eyes at her, but she’d never paid them any serious attention. She knew she was attractive, but she had always assumed that any interest was more because of her status as a high-ranking member of the esteemed Baskerville household rather than her appearance. Then again, Jack hadn’t made that distinction with her or Oswald – he was simply saying that they probably received a lot of suggestive attention from the people around them, whether it was because of their attractiveness or their status or anything else._

_“She’ll keep them vying forever,” Oswald said bluntly. Psyche glanced at him, amused._

_“What makes you think that?” Well, he wasn’t wrong. She had no intention of pursuing or being pursued by anyone, but she was still curious to hear the reason for her friend’s confidence._

_“You’ve never been interested in anyone since I’ve known you,” he pointed out. “Why would you start now?”_

_Neither of them said the unspoken, even though both of them, and probably Jack too, could feel it hanging in the air – that the duties of a Baskerville wouldn’t allow them the time nor energy nor even the closeness that needed to be invested to keep a romantic connection going._

_“And you, Jack?” Oswald asked, making Psyche blink in slight surprise. Oswald was seldom interested in knowing such details about other people. “Do you wish to be in a relationship with a woman?”_

_“Hm? Why ask, Oswald?” Jack also sounded mildly caught off-guard that the raven-haired man was bothering to make an inquiry like that._

_“You seem to have a lot of women around you.”_

_Psyche laughed out loud while Jack choked on an embarrassed gasp, Oswald’s characteristic straightforwardness giving his simple, innocent observation a flair of comedy. Oswald glanced back and forth between them, looking puzzled at their reactions. Clearly, he didn’t realize that, taken the wrong way, his comment could sound rather… scandalous._

_“Well, I’ve never seriously thought about it,” Jack said, once he’d gotten over the way Oswald had worded his remark. “Women just tend to find me approachable, so I make friends with them easily.”_

_Psyche narrowed her eyes. “Jack, don’t tell me you’re one of those womanizers who play with women’s feelings,” she said suspiciously._

_Jack looked offended. “I would never do that!” he declared, maybe a tad bit too insistently. “Besides, I just need Lacie to be around me. Then I’ll be fine with anything.”_

_Psyche had expected that, but it seemed to pique Oswald’s interest. He straightened against the tree trunk, studying Jack curiously. “Why? Are you in love with Lacie, Jack?”_

_Jack chuckled faintly – somehow he managed to make even that sound thoughtful. “In love with her? I… suppose you could say that. I only need to have her in my life to be happy. That’s what love is, isn’t it?”_

_Psyche didn’t say anything. Jack was undeniably different when he was with or talked about Lacie; that feeling of hollowness that always clung to him wherever he went, despite that easygoing smile of his, was filled when Lacie was brought up. His green eyes, usually flat and stoic somewhere deep down in contrast to his outward bubbliness, shone fervently, happily when she was near. Despite the fact that when Psyche had first met him she had decided that everything about the way he presented himself was soft, it had only taken quick further observation to notice it – that there had always been_ something _dangerous, jagged and razor-sharp, about Jack that he couldn’t hide._

 _But when Lacie appeared, he genuinely was all gentle slopes and smooth curves. It wasn’t_ quite _the same effect as Psyche imagined that romantic love had – she remembered when she was in love, after all, and it didn’t change her the way Lacie changed Jack. But even though Jack was close with Oswald and her, Psyche didn’t think he’d hesitate to leave them behind if it was for Lacie; she didn’t think he’d hesitate to leave anyone – or_ anything _– behind for Lacie’s sake. In fact, if she had to she would bet that there was nothing in the world that Jack wouldn’t do or wouldn’t not do for Lacie. She supposed that did mean he was in love with her, in a way._

_“Hm. I see.” Oswald gave no hint of what he was thinking._

_“Do you disapprove?” Jack asked cheekily. “You seem like – no, you definitely are – the protective type, Oswald. You did knock me out straight away when I hugged Lacie during the event that Glen prepared for Arthur.”_

_“I don’t like the idea of any man near Lacie,” Oswald responded immediately, sounding very faintly scandalized and indignant at the very words. Psyche snorted; mentioning the idea of Lacie in a romantic relationship was probably the easiest and surest way to rile Oswald up at least a little._

_“I suppose I’ll have to watch out for you, then.” Jack’s retort was playful. Psyche could tell he was about to say something else, but Oswald, purple eyes closed thoughtfully, beat him to it._

_“But if I would permit anyone to take care of Lacie in my stead, I suppose you would be the best option.”_

_Jack fell silent at that, his eyes wide with surprise. For her part, Psyche wasn’t surprised that Oswald thought Jack would be the best person to entrust his sister to, but she was a bit stunned that he’d actually given voice to that opinion. He must truly trust Jack if he was willing to tell him what he just had – she couldn’t help the fact that it made her a little, just a_ little, _uneasy. Of course they cared for Jack – Oswald did, certainly, and so did Lacie and Psyche – but for the future Glen to be so open with him despite the_ something _that had always been a little eerie about the golden-haired, green-eyed man… Was it that Oswald just didn’t see it? Or he didn’t care?_

_Or maybe he was deliberately ignoring it? That wasn’t quite like him, especially with regards to allowing people into his inner circle. Maybe he really did have deeper feelings for Jack._

_Before Psyche could ruminate on the thought longer, she caught a familiar aura approaching through the trees. She couldn’t describe it, exactly, but if she were to put it in terms of objects the words that came to mind, the words that it reminded her of, were belladonna and wolfsbane. Psyche knew intimately who it belonged to – it was Lacie._

_“Lacie’s coming,” she said._

_Jack perked up, glancing around. “Lacie? Where?”_

_Psyche gestured to the path winding outward from the cluster of trees about fifteen meters away from them. Sure enough, a purple-clad figure stepped out from between the trunks, strands of her long black hair dancing and frolicking in the wind. Her steps were hurried, but despite that and despite the full skirt reaching down to her feet, Lacie still managed to look impeccably graceful wherever she went. Even if she didn’t act like what people would consider a proper lady, she certainly moved like one._

_“Lacie!” Jack called brightly, leaping to his feet and running towards her. There it was. Those serrated, shattered edges seemed to disappear from him, whittling down and smoothing over into soft, malleable slopes, and the feeling of emptiness that always surrounded him seemed to fill until you almost couldn’t tell it had ever been there. Psyche watched him go lazily, having no intention of getting up – the afternoon sunlight was making it hard to stay alert. Neither did Oswald have thoughts of following Jack, apparently – he relaxed further, in fact, his head drooping lightly against her shoulder. He seemed sleepy._

_“Hey, Oswald?”_

_“Hm?”_

_“How do you feel about Jack?”_

_Oswald raised his head and looked at her. Their eyes met, and Psyche could see in his deep purple gaze that he was startled, though his face, muted and set in a stoic mask, hardly moved a muscle. Her question itself wasn’t shocking – it could easily be taken as innocuous – but Oswald’s stark reaction to it went a long way in confirming Psyche’s suspicions. Even if he didn’t realize it himself, he seemed to have become unusually attached to Jack. Then again, she could say the same for herself._

_“He’s someone that I trust,” Oswald said finally._

_Well. Even though his liking to, his_ trust _of, Jack was rather uncharacteristic, that response was certainly the most Oswald-like thing that Psyche could have expected. She supposed she’d have to be more direct._

_“Since we were on the subject of relationships, you think you might fancy him that way?”_

_Oswald went silent, but it was a calm kind of silence. His composure might have been unexpected to some considering how awkward he could be, and considering what was between_ them, but _with regards to these things he was surprisingly open-minded. Maybe it was because he’d never_ been _in a relationship and it seemed like a far-off, abstract concept to him, one that he would never have to contemplate seriously even if he did answer the question that she was giving him. Especially when the mentioned other party of the relationship was Jack._

_“A relationship with Jack? It would be nice… I suppose.”_

_Psyche knew that that was probably the most detailed answer she would get from him. There was a chance that not even Oswald knew how he felt about the idea beyond that extent._

_Well, she thought, the fact that he admitted it would be_ nice _already meant he had taken quite a liking to the emerald-eyed man._

_“Niisama, come on!” Lacie waved over at them, Jack attached to her side, looking at her with deep, unconcealed adoration. It was a strange sight; a passerby would have thought that he was her lover, or maybe her suitor, but Psyche didn’t think Jack had any mind to be either of those things._

_“Glen’s looking for you,” Lacie called. “And you, Psyche!”_

_With a low grumble, Oswald stood, his black coat rustling with his movements. Psyche followed suit, pushing herself to her feet reluctantly. That was all the relaxation she would be allowed, or allow herself, to have. Now, she had work to be doing._

Staring out into the blackness of the Abyss, Psyche felt a grim smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Oh yes, Oswald had admitted to her that he wouldn’t be averse to being with Jack that way – Oswald, who kept so many people at an arm’s distance, Oswald, who hardly opened his heart to anyone, Oswald, whose true affection was difficult to earn but once it was given lasted for all eternity. And Jack had used him, manipulated him, and in the end, he’d killed him.

The anger was as hot as Raven’s flames inside her; Psyche had to consciously restrain herself from reaching out and wringing to death whatever was closest to her, which ran the dangerous risk of being her patient’s neck. Words weren’t enough to describe how much she despised Jack Vessalius. Even more so because of that buried, insistent ache in her heart at the thought of how he’d turned on Oswald, turned on her. Just what _was_ it that made him willing to do that? How could she have fooled herself into trusting him so much that it _hurt_ that he’d betrayed them? Although Jack had always presented himself as amicable, as bumbling and cheerful and gentle, he hadn’t been able to hide those jagged, frayed edges from her. She’d picked up on them almost as soon as she met Jack, she’d known something about him was _shattered_ , and after Lacie had died he’d tried hard to conceal it but it had been too easy to see how instantly he’d broken into a trillion serrated pieces, unstable and lost. So how _– how –_ could she have come to somehow let him so close to her, how had he wormed his filthy way into her heart so that she _ignored_ what was just so _obvious?_ Why? _Why?_

She _loathed_ the fact that thinking of him made her heart feel splintered. She hated that it wasn’t _only_ fury that she felt towards him, when by all rights it should be. She detested that she had ever let him get close to her and now seemed unable to just completely purge him from her memories like she wanted to, so she could remember him as nothing but an enemy and not as _Jack,_ the man with the green eyes and the long golden hair always plaited into a braid, whom she’d laughed with and talked with and joked with and spent time with.

Gripping down with her index and middle fingers on the butterfly shape of her earring, Psyche pushed down firmly against the blazing heat that was threatening to spill from inside her at the direction that her thoughts were taking, once again molding and kneading it into a tight, restrained spark in the pit of her heart, flickering brightly. She knew she could use her hatred of Jack – and she _would,_ she would use it to keep her going until she found him and got her hands on him and tore him limb from limb – but for that, she had to keep it under her control.

She tried to steer her thoughts away from other people, because if she thought of people she would inevitably begin thinking of Lacie, and Oswald, and Jack, and Nesta, and—it would do her no good.

“Think of pastries,” Helio offered dryly. Psyche furrowed her brows at him in annoyance at the ridiculous suggestion, but surprisingly, she unexpectedly found herself imagining all the sweets that she hadn’t had a chance to eat since she fell into the Abyss at his words. She supposed it was only natural that Helio know the best way to distract her – he’d known her the longest, after all.

 _Pastries would be good,_ she thought wistfully. _Or cupcakes. Or brioche._ There were so many things that she would kill to have right now. Even fresh air, the feeling of wind threading through the strands of her hair, would be an immense pleasure. Psyche had learned long ago not to take sweets or any other type of nonessential food for granted, but she had never imagined she’d come to a point where she knew not to consider the feeling of wind against her skin as an unchanging constant anymore. Life was always full of the unexpected, she supposed. Even for a Baskerville; she shouldn’t let her guard down.

_After all, where did that get you with Jack?_

Once again, Psyche pushed the thought away. She could be as angry as she wanted, let it all out as much as she was holding it back now, when she came face-to-face with Jack again. Now… she needed to keep a level head.

 _Well, there’s one thing I can be grateful to my mother for,_ she thought, holding back the slight sneer that pulled temptingly at her facial muscles. Keeping calm – since she could remember her mother had drilled it into her, no matter how indirectly it might have been. Later, _others_ had too in different ways, though by then it hadn’t been necessary; her mother had done her job too well. Keep calm. Keep a level head. Your feelings are all over the place. Get yourself together. It’s just that simple. _Can’t you do anything right?_

She looked down at her patient again, reminded that who she was dealing with was a Child of Ill Omen – without an accompanying Glen, making it even stranger. Idly, she flicked the dangling red and white beads of her earring as she considered – what if this man was from a different time from the one that she remembered, the period the world had been in when she had fallen into the Abyss? What if he _was_ a Baskerville, just one from the future? He couldn’t be one from the past because their existences were all obliterated when the Glen they’d been born with used the Chains of Conviction to cast them away, but he could be one from the future. The Abyss warped everything, after all, and things that never would have made sense otherwise could perfectly well happen inside its infinite space. It was much more likely than the idea of a Child of Ill Omen without a Glen. Though… if her patient _was_ a Baskerville, why was he even in the Abyss as an Illegal Contractor? Baskervilles’ incuses did not turn; they had no hands because it was their right as servants of the Abyss to form contracts with Chains, and Illegal Contracts had no adverse effects on them. Quite the opposite, in fact; they gave them a companion for life. Which meant that _this_ Child of Ill Omen shouldn’t be suffering consequences for his Illegal Contract. Maybe he _wasn’t_ a Baskerville? But how? Near a Glen there was always a Child of Ill Omen. When the next Glen was found by the Droplets of Light, the next Child of Ill Omen to be cast away in the future was found with him or her. They both became Baskervilles then. Had this Child of Ill Omen somehow been separated from his Glen, who had become a Baskerville while he hadn’t? Or had both of them never been chosen by the Droplets? Did that mean that at some point in the future – speaking from the time that she was in before she fell into the Abyss – the Baskervilles were lacking a leader?

Her head aching with the rush of trying to figure it all out, Psyche stared into the Abyss again; she was getting sick of raising her head and being met with nothing but vast emptiness no matter what direction she looked. It had gotten to a point where it almost made her happy to see a piece of broken furniture or a toy floating around in the black void, which was a point that she never thought she’d get to. She didn’t know how long she spent, gazing silently forward, but by when she came out of the almost trancelike state she’d fallen into, Helio had kicked back and lain down, his silvery hair in disarray around his head and his purple eyes closed (though she could tell that he wasn’t asleep). Psyche recognized it as a classic sign that indicated that quite some time had passed since she’d begun staring out into the Abyss.

Which reminded her… what exactly had happened to the Abyss, anyway? She knew what it used to look like, and in fact she could still picture it vividly in her mind’s eye. A paradise bathed with golden light, cooler and softer and more beautiful than the sun. But a little less than a year after Lacie had been cast into the Abyss, the transformation had taken place, so rapid and unexpected that even Psyche had no idea what to make of it. That haven of brilliance had become… this.

For some time afterward, she’d been terrified that they might be making a move, although what they were aiming for she had no idea, and the mere thought that even _they_ were able to manage this complete makeover of the entirety of the Abyss had given her nightmares to think about. Yet months had passed and nothing had happened, so she’d gradually begun to relax. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still uneasy when she thought about the matter, though. If it _was_ them, what were they up to? And if it wasn’t them, then _what_ was it?

 _Think._ Had she ever come across or learned about anything that might have been the catalyst for the Abyss’ unexplained metamorphosis? Psyche furrowed her brow, deep in thought, but then her retreat into her mind and her memories was abruptly halted when her patient stirred again. He let out a low murmur that would have been incoherent to the human ear, but she was a Baskerville.

“Emily… sama…”

 _Emily again, huh?_ She thought, mindlessly threading her index finger through a strand of his tangled hair.


	4. Recollection II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why not?” she challenged, quiet but direct. “Should I have just left you to die?”
> 
> _“Yes.”_ The word was spat out.

Psyche watched her patient carefully as he began to regain consciousness, taking note of the way his brow plunged and his teeth gritted before he was even fully awake. He was going to have wrinkles at an earlier age if he kept that up. Or he would have, if not for the fact that he was all but without a doubt an Illegal Contractor who had been dragged into the Abyss after his incuse had completed its circle. He _was_ a Child of Ill Omen, though, so maybe he had a better chance than most to get out of this. Somehow.

_I’m helping a Child of Ill Omen._ At the recurrence of the thought, Psyche pursed her lips as a wave of guilt surged over her. She was helping a Child of Ill Omen, when she hadn’t helped Lacie? She was taking action against her position as a Baskerville to be kind to _this_ Child of Ill Omen, but she couldn’t have done the same for Lacie? Why hadn’t she?

_I did what I could for Lacie,_ she wanted to tell herself, but she couldn’t, in good conscience, do that. Not when it hadn’t been enough. Nowhere _near_ enough. If she’d done anything, _anything_ more she would have been in danger – she had already taken a risk just doing what she had – but was that really a valid excuse when she had allowed the price to be Lacie’s damnation?

Psyche refocused on her patient just in time to see his one eye opening. His gaze settled on her first, and she met it steadily. For a few seconds, he didn’t move.

Then his eye widened and he jerked his head from her lap, so sharply that Psyche had to pull her upper body backwards to prevent their foreheads from crashing together. He skittered backwards so there was about two meters’ worth of distance between himself and Psyche, aggression practically gushing from his every pore.

“Relax.” Keeping her voice quiet, Psyche stretched her hands out in his direction, trying to help him calm down. If he moved too much too abruptly, he would be risking his injury.

Next to her, Helio had pulled himself into a tense sitting position, clearly ready to strike if the man tried anything. Not that he needed to; Psyche was pretty sure she could take on someone in such a sorry state, but she also hoped her patient wouldn’t be foolish enough to attack either one of them.

“Wh-who—” The man _hissed_ in pain, his hand flying to his injured left eye. Upon feeling the fabric secured around it, he pulled his hand away, his single exposed eye narrowing as he studied the two of them. Though he still looked wary, the fact that Psyche was plainly the one who’d treated his injury seemed to calm him down a little bit.

“You relax too,” Psyche ordered Helio shortly, knowing that the tension etched into her Chain’s muscles might spook her patient. Helio obeyed without complaint, though clearly he didn’t like it – his body relaxed so he was sitting comfortably on the solid nothingness of the Abyss, and his hands fell to his lap. Psyche, too, held up her hands in a placating manner, trying to reassure the man that she had no ill intentions. At the back of her mind, she thanked the fact that she’d discarded her soiled and bloody Baskerville cloak after she’d first come to the Abyss. The affairs of the Baskervilles in the Abyss were secret from almost all other people, but their crimson cloaks were well-recognized in society. If – and that was a very big _if_ – this man ever got out and began talking about seeing a Baskerville in the Abyss, things could get troublesome. Provided he wasn’t a Baskerville himself… but then again, if he was and he recognized her because she’d kept her cloak, that could also have gotten confusing.

She opened her mouth to speak to him, but he cut her off before she even started.

“Why did you treat me?” There was an angry bitterness in his voice. Psyche blinked.

“It would be weirder if I didn’t, wouldn’t it?” she challenged mildly. “To just leave someone bleeding to death?”

The man didn’t seem to have anything to say to that – or perhaps he just couldn’t be bothered to respond. He glared at her, his teeth bared in a way that reminded her of an injured cat cornered by a dog. Then again, she shouldn’t have expected anything less from an Illegal Contractor. Most of them were in this state – halfway broken, volatile and worn, unable to hide their resentment of the world and everyone and everything in it. Her patient was no different.

“You shouldn’t have,” he said – a little more quietly this time, but no less acrimonious. In fact, he sounded more embittered than before. Not really sure what to do with him, Psyche studied her patient, vaguely curious about him. Who was Emily? Why was he so upset that she’d helped him? Did he want to die? Well, granted, he must know he’d been sucked to into the Abyss because of his Illegal Contract, but in that case, wouldn’t he be glad for someone to lend a helping hand to him? Especially after he’d so recently suffered such a serious injury? Speaking of which, who or what had even injured him? A Chain? In that case, why wasn’t he just dead?

But more than her worries or her questions, she couldn’t help the sympathy that washed over her as she stared at him. It was plain from his tone that his words weren’t just a throwaway phrase to put her off – he was genuinely angry that she’d treated him. She recognized that world-weary, bitter frustration too well, and it made her sad. It was nothing that anyone should have to experience. She wished she could comfort him, make him realize that he should value his life more, but if she knew nothing else she knew that those feelings of resentful exhaustion, of wanting to just let it all go and stop existing, couldn’t simply be abated by just comforting words.

“Why not?” she challenged, quiet but direct. “Should I have just left you to die?”

_“Yes.”_ The word was spat out. “I – I don’t have…” he trailed off, growling in pain and reaching up towards his left eye. Psyche got the feeling that he didn’t really want to elaborate on his reasoning. It probably had something to do with past events, likely the ones that had driven him to forming an Illegal Contract. Maybe he was feeling guilty, too; from her experience, there were more than just a few Illegal Contractors who broke down from the sheer remorse of the people they killed on their Chain’s request.

She had no intention of pushing him for an answer, though. She just wished he would consider her question more, but she doubted that he would. It would require him to think about his past, his past actions, and she had never met an Illegal Contractor who was fond of doing that. Understandably so, but still…

“Well, you’re stuck here,” she said finally. “So am I. And I doubt that you’re in a position where you want to be by yourself.” She wasn’t even sure if he would live much longer unless he got that eye properly treated. How was she going to help him with that? Especially when it seemed like he didn’t even want to be helped?

The man was silent for a few seconds. “You’re wrong,” he said with finality. “You can leave. I don’t need to be alive anymore.”

_Anymore._ Combined with the fact that in his delirious state he’d mistaken her for Emily and had told her that _he did it,_ that _she’d never be alone again,_ that _he’d never leave her again…_ he talked like he’d achieved something big that meant that Emily would no longer be alone – and now that he’d achieved that thing, he didn’t need to be alive _anymore._ But he had also expressed that he’d never leave Emily again, which he definitely couldn’t do if he died… not to mention that, even though it was just her intuition, he didn’t really _feel_ like someone who wanted to die just yet.

_Weird._ Then again, he could be wanting two opposite things at the same time. Emotions were never clear-cut and simple. _If they were, living would be a lot simpler,_ Psyche thought dryly.

“Maybe you think that, but I’m not going to leave.” She put her intentions plainly. That was better than trying to skirt around the matter and acting like she was even going to consider just going on her merry way. Even if it irritated the man, which it clearly did. He glowered at her, and if not for the pain he was no doubt it, Psyche suspected he would probably have been much louder about his opposition.

As it was, he just gritted out, “Why are you so insistent? I don’t _need_ your help. Just…” She could have sworn his voice wobbled the tiniest bit. “Just get away from me.”

“No.” Psyche placed her chin in her palm and stared at him. “I can’t do that, I’m afraid.”

“If it makes you feel better, I want her away from you just as much as you do,” Helio said. His voice was calm, devoid of emotion, but he was eyeing the man with undisguised dislike.

“You be _quiet,”_ Psyche ordered, rolling her eyes. “I’m sorry about him. My point is… I know you don’t want me to stay around you, but I’m going to. I ripped my favorite dress to treat you; I don’t want to let that go to waste.” The words made her sound incredibly shallow – after all, her motivation _ought_ to be that she wanted to _help him_ , not that she didn’t want to waste the fact that she had had to rip her dress. And her main reason for wanting to stick around _was_ that she wanted to help him, but she doubted this man, hurting and distrustful and clearly in no mood to be dealing with sentimentality, would appreciate hearing that. He was probably less likely to be spooked – well, _more_ spooked – if she made her reason something elementary.

As she’d expected, her explanation for why she wanted to stick around him made her patient snort with dripping derision, scorn twisting his features. His one remaining red eye bore into her scathingly, like he was trying to drive her away with the sheer resentment in his gaze, but Psyche didn’t flinch; she’d gotten more than plenty of hateful stares in her life. Off-handedly, she realized that even with the bandages wrapped around half his face and head, even with all the filthiness and tattered clothes, even with the fact that he was scowling at her like she was the most repulsive thing he’d ever had to deal with, he was rather attractive. There was something very _pretty_ about him, enhanced by the long silver hair and the narrow facial structure.

_Not the time or place, Psyche._ Mentally, she flicked the stray thoughts out of her mind like she would swat at a gnat buzzing around her. Not that it really mattered, but she doubted her patient would be too enthused if he knew what had gone through her head just then.

Speaking of which, said patient seemed to have given up dissuading her from staying around him rather easily (probably the throbbing agony of his eye wasn’t a very fine incentive for being incessantly hostile). Another few seconds later, he turned his head angrily away from her, staring off with stone-cold hardness into the blackness of the Abyss, though Psyche thought she could sense a slight daze coming over him. Faced with the empty void inside which they were currently trapped, she didn’t blame him for having a little bit of trouble taking it all in. Especially since he might _not_ be a Baskerville, a thought that gave her a migraine just to consider… though, as a Child of Ill Omen, he theoretically _should_ be more familiar with the Abyss than the average person.

If he was content being silent and not trying to shoo her away, though, Psyche was content to leave him alone. What she had to think of now was what she was going to do to treat him further. She’d stopped the bleeding, but even _that_ could come back at any point, especially considering her patient, now awake, was unpredictable. Thoughtful, Psyche glanced sideways at him. She had been staring for a few seconds when he looked her way and saw that her eyes were on him. His entire body tensed.

“Stop that.” The words were practically a snarl, antagonistic and rabid. Psyche looked away without arguing, but she could still feel him glaring at her. At least until he let out a muted hiss of pain, reaching up to cover his bandages with his hand. Slightly alarmed, Psyche let her eyes flick in his direction, though her head remained still. From her peripherals, she could see light traces of blood beginning to seep through the fabric of the makeshift bandages she’d used her dress for. Then, to her faint horror, her patient grunted under his breath and began to scratch his nails down along the fabric like he was trying to reach an itch in his injury. The stains of blood darkened where his fingers dug in.

“Stop that,” Psyche hissed, mirroring his words from earlier without realizing. She stood and made her way towards him, but as she knelt by his side he lashed out, shoving at her with his free hand. Out of instinct, she dodged sideways, pulling her shoulder out of his range and narrowly avoiding getting pushed over and falling on her backside. Still, it was impossible to sidestep the wild glare that he sent her way, red eye burning with emotion. _What_ emotion it was, Psyche didn’t want to name despite having an idea. At first glance it looked like it might have been hatred, but it didn’t seem directed at _her._

Helio was at her shoulder in a second flat. He looked calm, his face set in a neutral, stoic mask, but contrary to appearances, Psyche could practically _feel_ the furious tension rolling off of him in waves. She held her hand out, just in case he was about to do anything rash. Even though her patient didn’t seem to care – in fact, he returned Helio’s stare defiantly, venom dripping from his every pore – she knew it would be a mistake not to tell Helio to restrain himself (verbally or nonverbally). He didn’t look it, but he could be hot-tempered.

“It’s okay,” Psyche assured her Chain, touching his hand reassuringly before kneeling by her patient again. She was cautious, but this time he didn’t lash out, even though he turned his face slightly away and refused to look in her direction.

“Let me just see the bandages,” she requested. He ignored her.

“Look,” Psyche said slowly, “Let’s make a deal. Let me see the bandages and try to help with the bleeding, and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll still stick around you, but I won’t talk to you or try to interact with you.” She figured that that was the best thing her patient could get from her. She wasn’t going to leave him; how long she would hang around him even she didn’t know, but she was certain it would be for quite a while at the least. But she could promise to pretend he wasn’t there, which was probably the closest she would get to what he wanted.

For a long moment, he said nothing, didn’t even give a sign that he’d heard her (although there was no way he hadn’t). Then, wordlessly, he turned in her direction. His face was set in a cold mask, but he did a poor job of hiding the pain and bitter anguish in his one red eye. She got the feeling that he was trying to appear stoic, but whatever had happened to him had clearly affected him too much for him to hide.

Relieved that she had gotten her patient to listen at least a little bit, Psyche knelt next to him again and studied the bandages and the blood seeping through them. She grimaced slightly at the sight of the redness spreading through the fibers of the cloth; if she wanted to stop the bleeding, she needed more layers of fabric. Thankfully, she did have three strips left over, previously torn off from her dress but unused as of now.

“I’m going to have to wrap this over the other bandages,” she told her patient. _So I’m going to have to put my hands on you. Don’t bite me, please._

Slowly, she drew out one of the ribbons that she’d cut out from her dress and reached toward his head, raising herself on her knees so she could be at the proper height to wrap the bandage around the ones she’d already given him.

When her hands made contact with the skin of his face, she could have sworn a shudder passed through him. His entire body was rigid, and because of the way they were positioned, she could feel the very faint puffs of air through the material of her clothes as he breathed. Even his inhales and exhales were anxious – erratic and tight, feeding into the general air of tension that was practically imbued into his every cell. It was so strong that Psyche felt like he might snap at any moment. As she wrapped the strap of fabric carefully over and around his injured eye, she wondered vaguely if he was feeling the urge to shove her back again. And while it was wholly unpleasant to have to deal with him in this… frame of mind, it was more than understandable. Though if she could say she didn’t blame him, Psyche didn’t know. She was pretty sure she was dealing with a murderer, after all. He was an Illegal Contractor; there was no doubt that he’d killed more than once.

If he did want to push her away again, though, he didn’t act on it, which she appreciated. A few times he grunted quietly, and occasionally his jaw clenched. Psyche knew he was in considerable discomfort, but there was nothing she could do to help him with that.

She finished her work and tied off the strip of cloth, making sure to triple-knot it at the end to prevent it from coming loose. Leaning back a little bit, her eyes narrowed as she studied her handiwork carefully, searching for any signs of more bleeding coming through. Considering the amount of blood when she’d found him, maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised when more redness began to seep through.

Concern making her hurry a bit more than she usually did, Psyche began wrapping the third strip that she’d ripped from her dress over the two previous layers of bandages. Her patient was tenser than ever. He might actually pull a muscle if he stiffened any more.

“I think you’d find it to your benefit if you relaxed a little bit,” Psyche said quietly, choosing her words with caution as she did another loop around his head with the fabric. She didn’t want to sound even remotely like she was ordering anything on him. There was no way to tell how he’d react, and she would really like to stop the bleeding again before he decided he couldn’t tolerate her being near him anymore.

For a good few seconds, he didn’t move. Then, just very slightly, his body loosened. He was still tense nearly to the point of snapping, but it was marginally better, and Psyche supposed it was the best she was going to get.

Well, not _really._ If she wanted to push further she could, but in truth she wasn’t keen to. Her patient was volatile, and if he tried anything truly dangerous to her then Psyche knew that Helio would have a hard time holding back. He was always overprotective of her, even when being concerned was more or less unnecessary. She could easily deal with one heavily injured man by herself, without needing to hurt him further, but Helio saw red whenever he thought she was anywhere remotely close to being in danger.

She finished wrapping the ribbon of cloth that she had and tied it off, once again triple-knotting. But then, sitting back on her haunches, Psyche was dismayed to see that it took only about ten more seconds for blood to start slowly soaking through. It was less than it had been one layer before, which was at least a start, but she would have to do more. And it would probably be better if her patient laid down like he had been doing when he was unconscious – that way, gravity wouldn’t be pulling down at his injury, drawing more blood from it. The problem was if she could convince him to listen to her.

“The blood’s not stopping,” she started. Her patient didn’t react.

“It would be better if you laid down,” she said.

There was a pause. Then, wordlessly, he turned away from her, adjusting himself so his back was pointedly in her direction, and didn’t lay down. A no, then.

But Psyche wasn’t ready to give up. She considered her options; she could always knock him out and force him to lay down that way, but she didn’t want to inflict any physical damage on him in the state that he was in. She could try to persuade him by saying that there was a very good chance that he’d bleed to death if he didn’t do as she asked. (Not that laying down increased the odds dramatically, either, but he didn’t need to know that. If he wasn’t already aware of it, that was.)

Psyche doubted that would work like she wanted it to, though. She might have had the feeling that this man didn’t truly want to die like he insisted he did, and she had only become surer of that suspicion as she’d interacted with him, as little as that had been. But she also didn’t think that her intuition being correct meant that he would immediately start trying to help himself (which meant listening to her and laying down). He seemed to be caught between that space; not wanting to die, but not wanting to acknowledge that he wanted to keep living. In that state, especially when someone unfamiliar was nearby, it was hard to _act_ on that desire to live.

She could try to convince him to try to help himself, give him an external motivation so he could _pretend_ he wanted to die but would keep trying to live for someone else’s sake. There was one name she could bring up, after all. Psyche had no idea who exactly Emily was to her patient, but that didn’t really matter; as long as she was someone important, which she definitely was, Psyche could make an attempt at using her name to give her patient that external motivation to at least _try_. But _that_ would require she talk about touchy subjects, which Emily most probably was, and she couldn’t predict how he would react on her initial mention.

(She certainly _could_ guess, though, and be reasonably confident about that guess. Surprise, then anger and lashing out was what she would bet on.)

But whatever risk she was taking by mentioning Emily, she was willing to accept and be ready to handle on the spot if it just meant she could convince her patient to lay down to help stem the flow of blood from his eye socket.

So, bracing herself mentally, she spoke, taking care to keep her voice soothing.

“Whoever Emily is, if you die you’ll certainly be leaving her.”

Her patient spun towards her, eye wide with shock – but more strikingly, _horror_. His legs tensed, like he wanted to stand, but when he realized that trying to do anything on his own two feet after losing so much blood was unlikely to work for him, he lashed out. And even though she’d been expecting that, the sheer frenzy with which he did so caught Psyche off guard. Baring his teeth in a snarl, his eye blazing, he closed his fingers around the collar of her dress in a vice-like grip, so hard that she wondered if the fabric might tear. Psyche could have avoided his lunge, but she didn’t; part of her figured it was better to let him take out whatever it was he was feeling when she mentioned Emily – and part of her was immobilized in stunned fascination at his visceral reaction. Why was he so _enraged?_ What was he even so enraged at?

As her patient yanked her sharply towards him so they were nose-to-nose, Psyche, in the midst of her stupor, barely remembered to hold out a hand at Helio, gesturing for him to restrain himself. She didn’t need to look at him to know that had she not done so, he probably would have pounced. There was only time to be grateful that he listened to her before her patient was hissing in her face.

“What do you know?” he spat wildly, and Psyche could see blood continuing to soak through the bandages wrapped around his left eye, faster and faster with the exertion he was putting on himself. “Where did you hear that name? Answer!” The words were punctuated with a harsh jerk as he shook her with a fury. More blood spread into the fibers of cloth swathed over his injury, dampening the material.

Psyche didn’t flinch, although the back-and-forth motions of her patient shaking her made her teeth rattle irritatingly. “You were muttering about her when I found you,” she explained – not the full truth, but close enough that it didn’t matter.

“But how – you—” It was like the words died in his throat, dissolving into poison and bile, and for a second she was afraid that he would choke on it. But he regained a stitch of composure, his sagging shoulders heaving as he took a deep, and simultaneously feeble, breath. Everything seemed to drain out of him at once, and suddenly, he let her go and slumped backwards – not laying down like she’d asked him to, but it was still like all the fight inside him had seeped away at once. Psyche wondered why. Was it because of Emily? Was it because he couldn’t find anything to be angry at her for? Neither? Both? More than that?

“Please lay down,” she requested softly. “It’ll help stop your bleeding.”

The man stared at her for a long moment. His gaze was unfocused, and she got the feeling that he was looking right through her.

_What could he be seeing?_ It wasn’t any of her business, but… she was curious about it, albeit acknowledging that that curiosity was inappropriate. She couldn’t help it, though – he was oddly fascinating. Maybe it was because he was the first human she’d encountered since she’d fallen into the Abyss.

Her patient’s eye flicked upward, towards Helio, who was standing behind her. Psyche glanced over her shoulder; he was returning the other man’s stare. She was grateful, though, that the gaze was unreadable rather than overtly threatening like Psyche was afraid it might have been.

But maybe she should have known that he wouldn’t be so pitiless to someone that Psyche had chosen to help. Helio wasn’t _cruel,_ he was just concerned about her. Overly so, granted, but it was still what motivated him – not cruelty, or even just ruthlessness.

Her patient turned his gaze back to her, and Psyche thought she saw a peculiar sense of wonder there. _What_ he was awed at, and _why_ he was so quiet suddenly, was something she could only guess.

Then, averting his eye, he eased himself onto his back on the tangible darkness underneath them, wincing in pain. Dumbfounded, Psyche and Helio stared at him.

_That’s… not quite what I meant,_ Psyche thought wryly, blinking down at her patient, who looked uncomfortable and irritated in the position that he was in.

Approaching, she knelt slowly next to his head and patted her lap. The strangeness of what she was doing wasn’t lost on her – after all, this was supposed to be something that people with deep intimacy between them did, not two strangers – but Psyche wasn’t going to allow something so trivial dissuade or prevent her from doing her best to make sure she could somehow keep him alive. Lives were at stake, which trumped any sense of oddness. Now hopefully, for the sake of efficiency, her patient thought the same. “If you put your head here, I could wrap more bandages around your eye without you having to sit up.”

There was a beat. Looking down at him, Psyche could see the faintly scandalized look in the Contractor’s eye, but it barely took a second before he seemed to steel himself. Without a word, he did as she suggested with the support of her hands on his shoulders, his head settling onto her thighs, pressed against them through the material of her dress.

Grateful that he’d listened without complaint, Psyche carefully slipped one hand underneath his head and began winding the last strip of fabric that she’d cut from her dress around the injury. Even though she had told herself to be calm, and she _was_ still feeling fairly clearheaded, she couldn’t help feeling acutely aware of his eye so close to her face as she leaned down to get a better view of her handiwork. It didn’t make her feel self-conscious, but it _did_ remind her without a doubt that this was a _person_ she was so physically close to.

A Child of Ill Omen. An Illegal Contractor. A murderer…

But she was a murderer too, so it didn’t put her off as much as it maybe should have. In fact, Psyche realized with a noncommittal blink that gave nothing away, it would have felt stranger to her if she was in the company of someone completely innocent. She couldn’t remember the last time that had been the case. Her fellow Baskervilles, eliminating Illegal Contractors… they were murderers, even the younger ones like Lily and Maylis, Orpheus and Zwei. Even _Jack_ – he may not have been a murderer exactly, when she’d first met him, but he was never _innocent_ either, and, deep down, she’d never thought of him as such. But she had only been able to come to terms with that hunch _after_ he had killed Oswald, instigated the Tragedy. _Sooner,_ that was all she had needed, just _sooner_ , and yet—

Or maybe Jack had been a murderer since before she met him. After all, he had begun as an illegitimate child, a bastard cared about by nobody, and he’d climbed his way up the social ladder like the filthy parasite he was. It wasn’t far-fetched that his hands had gotten quite dirty during those years.

But even before the Baskervilles, there had been _them_ too. And in terms of being _murderers,_ the Baskervilles couldn’t be compared to them.

And in terms of being murderers, Psyche doubted her patient could compare to them either. After having spent much of her early life with such people… as clearly as she knew, as clearly as it hit her several times over, that the man with his head laid across her lap, whose wounds she was trying to bandage up, whose life she was trying to save, was a murderer, she couldn’t help the fact that she felt unmoved by the idea.

She finished tying the fabric around his eye and tied it off once again before carefully removing her hand from under her patient’s head, letting it settle fully onto her lap. “Are you comfortable?” she asked, feeling strange to be asking that question because there was no way he _could_ be comfortable with the gaping wound on his face. She was fairly sure that knew what she meant – was his head on her legs suitably positioned so it didn’t feel awkward – but still.

He grunted lowly but didn’t make an attempt to adjust or give any indication that he wanted her to move. Psyche decided to take it as a yes.

Sitting there in silence, it was difficult to miss the way her patient’s face was creased, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. He was doing a good job of keeping his composure – she wouldn’t have been surprised to see someone groaning and whimpering and crying and everything in between given an injury as serious as his – but it was obvious that he was in pain nevertheless. Psyche wished she could do something to alleviate it, but she had nothing to do so with. Unless she knocked him out, but that could do more harm than good.

At least she saw no more blood seeping through the fabric, now that she’d added yet another layer and had managed to convince him to lay down.

Helio sat next to her, his eyes fixated on the man laying his head across her lap. For his part, her patient didn’t even move to acknowledge his existence. It was probably the last thought on his mind considering the state he was in.

She was about to half-jokingly tell Helio and his blatant staring off – only _half_ because she knew Helio had a stony, weighty gaze that could easily make people uncomfortable – but the sudden burst of _something_ that erupted from a few meters in front of her had the words shriveling in her throat. She couldn’t describe it exactly, but it was akin to a breath of fresh air in the dull nothingness of the Abyss; a burst of light in the midst of unyielding monotony. It blew over Psyche and Helio like a fragrance, and they both stiffened, somehow able to tell exactly what it was. And Psyche’s patient did, too, if the way he raised his head, single eye wide, was any indication.

And then, so clear and undeniable that Psyche thought she absolutely must be hallucinating, the darkness of the Abyss began to split apart and _opened,_ light spilling from the rapidly growing archway gaping in front of them. Although the glare was blinding and she could hardly see, Psyche glimpsed something on the other side that made her breath catch in her throat – a chamber. A _chamber!_ She hadn’t seen a real chamber in an amount of time that she couldn’t recall. It felt as amazing as if she were seeing a palace up close.

_A way out. A way_ out! She wanted to stand and bolt for the entrance – or was it an exit? – but she couldn’t move because of her patient’s head in her lap. Her mind scrambling, Psyche considered asking Helio to carry him, but before she could say anything, her patient moved. Flipping from his spot, he tried to stand, only to totter and fall before he could even straighten his knees.

“Wait!” Psyche cried, standing, wincing a bit at the unexpected protest from her legs after being bent for so long. She couldn’t let this man leave the Abyss with any memories of her or Helio! If they ever encountered each other again… he would no doubt be suspicious as to what they had been doing in the Abyss.

Helio moved to grab the man, probably with the same concern as hers, but as he took a step forward, he was suddenly flung backwards by an invisible force and went flying. Shocked, Psyche barely sensed another burst of pulsating Abysmal energy swinging towards her and narrowly dodged it, landing in a crouched position as her eyes fixated on her patient. So the Abyss _wanted_ him to escape, was that it?

He was now trying to drag himself towards the opening, clearly intending to get out before it closed again, which was who-knew-when. Psyche couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave, but she couldn’t just _allow_ him to escape into the 1st Dimension with all his memories of her and Helio intact.

She sprinted towards him, not at all surprised to feel the onslaught of several more violent pulses of energy aimed towards her. She ducked two and swiftly sidestepped the last one without breaking stride, determined to get to her patient before he could escape.

And there was almost no way he _could_ without her reaching him first – he was moving too slowly, _crawling,_ and Psyche was _running._ Dodging another beam of invisible force thrown at her, Psyche arrived at her patient’s side, but as she reached down to grab him, he was suddenly and forcefully sucked towards the exit yawning in front of them as a vortex-like pull took hold of his body. The fabric of his clothes brushed against her fingertips and she _felt_ it slip away as he was yanked to the exit.

_No!_ Abandoning all her reserves, Psyche dove for her patient, and miraculously, her fingers closed around his tattered black cloak. But she wasn’t sucked out with him – thankfully, since that would mean she had left Helio alone and the last thing she wanted was to let that happen – instead a force from behind yanked at her with dizzying insistence, and she found herself clenched in a standstill between the vacuum pulling her patient out of the Abyss and the vacuum pulling her into it. Her fingers were clamped down around the fabric of his cloak, but she could tell that it was only a matter of time before the cloth ripped.

There was no other way to do this. It risked drawing their gaze, but she had no choice, and she doubted it truly _would._ This was just a little dip back into those abilities, after all.

Straining her hand forward towards her patient’s face, Psyche wasn’t expecting the pang of regret that hit her as their gazes met. She knew she had to part with him here – that was obvious, and though she wasn’t _sad_ about it, per se, she couldn’t help the strange feeling of loss that washed lightly over her, making time slow down.

Psyche shook it off. Extending her index finger, she touched the tip of the slim digit to her patient’s forehead, concentrating her ability into the gesture. As soon as her skin made contact with his, his eye widened and then slipped closed almost the instant after. His body relaxed in the grip of the vortex as he lost consciousness, and the thought came unbidden to her mind that he looked nicely peaceful.

“Bye,” Psyche whispered.

Then she let go of him, and he was washed outwards through the exit, his black-clad form vanishing into the blinding depths of light spilling from it. And just like it had been waiting for that moment, the gateway slammed shut with a fury, rattling Psyche’s bones. No longer suspended in the air by the invisible forces of the Abyss, she fell to the ground, barely managing to land crouched on her hands and knees instead of in a heap – and even then, because of the puffy skirts of her dress, the landing felt awkward, clumsy.

But it didn’t matter. She’d managed to get rid of her patient’s memories – he’d never recall meeting her or Helio in the Abyss now.

Speaking of Helio… Psyche looked around as she stood unsteadily, her gaze landing on the sprawled form of her Chain a good few dozen meters away. He must have been flung far, she thought with concern as she picked up her skirts and ran towards him.

As she approached, Helio stirred and sat up, swiping a hand irritably through his silver hair. Their eyes met, and he smiled reassuringly, letting her know he was alright. In typical Helio fashion, though, he didn’t get up and let her bridge the gap between them on her own, to Psyche’s amused annoyance. She knelt next to him, her eyes scanning his body for any remaining injuries.

“The throw broke a few bones, but they’re healed now,” Helio said. Oh. That explained why he hadn’t immediately come to her aid like he usually did.

“I wonder why the Abyss wanted him to leave,” Psyche commented, her eyes narrowed in thought. Was the Abyss merely playing whimsical favorites? Did the Core have some plans for that man? Was he headed towards doing something significant?

“Who knows,” Helio shrugged; he’d never been one to try to use up time thinking of things that weren’t directly related to him. Besides, Psyche suspected – quite a lot, in fact – that he was glad the man was away from her now. She fought the urge to sigh. “I’m more concerned about that pathway that opened. Where did that come from?”

He had a point. Psyche put an arm on his shoulder and leaned against him, thinking. Was it because her patient was a Child of Ill Omen, maybe? Had he been able to open a pathway out of the Abyss because of the affinity for the Abyss that that trait gave him? But she also couldn’t deny that his aura as a Child of Ill Omen had not been on par with Lacie’s, or Vincent’s, not to mention how heavily injured he was… and even for an unhurt, regular Child of Ill Omen, opening a way out of the Abyss while being entirely, _physically_ trapped inside it, was a feat.

“Hey, Psyche…”

Psyche glanced at Helio, whose chin was propped on his hand, his eyes aimed outwards at the surrounding blackness that had returned after the closing of the path out.

“That exit that opened for that man – don’t you think its height and width were perfectly the same as one of the Five Gates?”

Psyche blinked. She hadn’t thought about that before, too caught up in trying to prevent her patient from getting out of the Abyss before she could erase his memories, but Helio was right. The height and width were, from rough visual estimation, exactly the same as it would have been if one of the Five Gates of the Baskervilles was opening.

_Hmm…_ So he _had_ escaped through one of the Gates? If so, which one? And where did it lead out to? That chamber that she’d glimpsed on the other side hadn’t looked at all like the cavern in which the Baskervilles had placed the Five Gates. Had they been moved? Had the others already gotten out and found the Gates again? Were they perhaps… with someone else?

The last thought unnerved Psyche deeply. The idea of something like the Five Gates to the Abyss, even just _one_ of them, being in the hands of the wrong person – it could be disastrous. That kind of power, wielded by someone willing to use it for malicious purposes…

Suddenly, a sense of bone-deep urgency filled her. What had she been doing all this time? Lazing around, fighting Chains, raging against Jack, worrying about the others, all without trying to do anything? She’d decided that Gates were her only way out when in fact – in fact, they weren’t. It was just that she had been too reluctant to use the other method available to her, afraid of the attention it might attract from those people.

But it was more pressing that there was a possibility that the powers of the Baskervilles might have fallen into hands of ill intention. She couldn’t afford to be idle here any longer. She had to see what had happened in the time she’d been in the Abyss and make sure that nothing too threatening to the stability of the world was around. And besides, Oswald… she’d like to find him too. To do that she had to locate Gilbert, even though the idea of serving so soon under anyone that wasn’t Oswald made her heart clench displeasingly. He might have the soul of all the past Glens, including her friend, but still – it wouldn’t be the same, especially because Oswald hadn’t even been able to serve all his time as the head of the Clan. He had died too soon. For the Baskervilles, and… for her too. She’d lost him much faster than she had been ready to.

_Jack…_

And what happened to _him?_ Who knew what he was up to now? If only to stop him from doing _something else_ – and only Jack Vessalius knew what that could possibly be – she couldn’t keep loitering here, in the Abyss. Would Jack really stop with just one disaster, just one massacre? She doubted it. It was just so clear to her now, how fractured and twisted and warped beyond repair his mind was. Just taking a few looks at him, just speaking with him a few times, should have been enough to confirm that. And yet…

_“It’s an honor to personally meet a Baskerville. I’m Jack, Psyche-san – but you probably know that already.”_

_“You should try it too, Psyche. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s fun!”_

_“Show me then! If it doesn’t run the risk of killing you, I mean.”_

She’d _let_ him _fool her._ It was insulting – but even then, it would have been wonderful if her failure to cut him off in time just _insulted_ her and nothing more. But that wasn’t the case; no, it had led to _disaster._ The destruction of the city, the deaths of all those people, the casting of her and her fellow Baskervilles into the Abyss – _Oswald’s death, too._ She could have prevented it – _every_ single one – if she’d just trusted her initial feelings about Jack. Those things had been the cost of her dismissing what was right in front of her, just so, _so_ plain to see.

It was too late to make up for what had already happened, but she _could_ stop what might come. In the Abyss, though, that wasn’t possible. She had to leave.

Psyche stood abruptly. “Heli, we’re getting out of here.”

He blinked up at her, his purple eyes striking against the monochrome backdrop of the Abyss. “Well… yes. We’re hoping for a Gate to open near us some time. Why are you talking like—”

“Not through a Gate,” she interrupted, too impatient to let him finish the question. “I’ll create my own way out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, my ideas on where this story will go are pretty vague. I have a basic outline in my head, but there'll be a lot of gaps to fill in between, and I'm not sure how I'm going to go about that. That's part of the fun, though. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Thoughts and reviews are always welcome.


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